


Give 'em hell, kid

by fox_diaz



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Bi Simon, M/M, Normal AU, Rock Band AU, Rockstar AU, a lot of Twilight references for some reason, enemies to emotional duets, folk legend Ebb Petty, folk punk Simon, guess who listens to Carly Rae Jepsen, mild to moderate drinking problems, punk keyboardist Agatha, rock star baz, simon and baz on tour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fox_diaz/pseuds/fox_diaz
Summary: TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT: The famously theatrical pop-punk quintet BAZ PITCH AND THE DARK CREATURES have announced a five date UK tour fresh off the release of their debut album CATACOMBS (4* review, page 17).Simon Snow, folk punk newcomer, to support.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 110
Kudos: 139





	1. CAMDEN

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to [@tbazzsnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artescapri/pseuds/tbazzsnow) for the beta!

**@rockmyworld61:** _@bazpitch_ pls pls tell me you’re going to play Light A Match tonight

 **@james819239:** _@bazpitch_ Alright mate what are the stage times for KOKO tonight? Doesn't say on the website and I'm coming from Portsmouth

 **@amatchinyourheart:** _@bazpitch_ Do you like my t-shirt??? I made it myself 

**@pitchbitch04** : _@bazpitch_ bite me daddy

*  
  
  


BAZ

I scream into the crowd, and the crowd screams back.

I feel like I could fucking fly right now. Part of me wants to try - wants to take a running leap off the stage and fall into the sea of hands that I know will catch me, let them lift me higher until I feel like I’m going to crash through the lights and keep floating up and up and up - but people get handsy enough every time I lean into the barrier, so it's not a good idea to give them free reign to grope me.

We've thundered through our set, barely stopping to breathe. I tore an old blister on my hand open three songs ago and didn't feel it at all, just kept playing and singing and bleeding all over my guitar. It doesn’t matter. It’ll look dramatic in the pictures. I’m a mess right now, my suit is stuck tight to my body and my hair is probably a fucking nightmare, but I know that's not what people are seeing when they look up at me. 

To them, I'm on fire.

It's time to close the set. The lights dip and the cheering quietens for a moment; I close my eyes, press my lips to the mic and wait. To my left, the lights on Agatha’s keyboard start to glow as she plays the opening notes to _Light A Match_ , the lead single from our album and our biggest song a hundred times over; the crowd immediately starts to roar its approval as the lights come back up. 

"This is our last song," I say, and the cheers turn to boos so instantaneously that I can’t help but smirk a little. "But we'll be seeing you all very soon. Sing along if you know it; and if you don't know it ... then why the _fuck_ are you here?"

They know it. Every last one of them. Nobody's here by accident; the tickets sold out in exactly eighteen seconds. Fiona had a stopwatch running on her phone. They sing along to every word, hands reaching out towards me, and I give them everything I’ve got. 

We run offstage as the crowd keeps cheering. They’re begging for an encore, but we don’t do them - never have. I think it’s hideously cheesy to hide offstage for a couple of minutes and then trot back on pretending you weren’t planning to come back, and after I put my foot down about it everybody else fell in with me.

All except Mordelia, but I’m convinced she just opposes me to be contrary. 

Agatha slaps me on the back once I’ve put my guitar down and I throw an arm around her; we’re all disgustingly sweaty, but our adrenaline is up and it needs to _go_ somewhere so I try to pick her up and she laughs and pushes me away. 

“That was good,” Mordelia says, and Niall rolls his eyes. He’s managed to hold onto both drum sticks today, which is a fucking miracle as he usually can’t stop himself from throwing them into the crowd at the end of our set. I’ve told him a thousand times to stop doing it. We’re meant to be cultivating an air of _mystery;_ when the set ends, we should disappear offstage immediately, not linger on and risk breaking character. 

“It was _great,_ Mord,” says Dev, handing his bass to a thickset roadie. “Fuck, did you see that girl pass out halfway through? Thought she was dead. Thought we’d actually killed her.” 

“You were flat,” Mordelia says to me, pushing her sweaty fringe out of her eyes. “On the last chorus of _Coffin_. Was your monitor up?” 

I wasn’t flat. Was I? I’d have noticed. My post-performance high crashes through the floor. Agatha is frowning at Mordelia, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder, but I’m already crossing to the box we leave our phones in while we perform. I grab mine, unlock it and search for all mentions of _@andthedarkcreatures,_ looking for videos that have already been uploaded.

“Baz,” Agatha says. “Come and have a drink.” 

I ignore her. I’m scrolling through shaky camera phone footage, pressing play on each one and holding it up to my ear briefly before moving on to the next clip, listening for evidence that Mordelia is right. Tinny sound blasts out of my phone’s speakers over and over again. I wince every time. 

“Earth to Baz,” Niall says gently. “Come on. Fiona ordered Thai. She said something cryptic about tour news, too.” 

That gets my attention - the tour news part, not the Thai food. I follow the others, still frowning down at my phone as I skim my feed, barely noticing that we’ve made it down the corridor and into the tiny, tatty dressing room until somebody wrenches my research out of my hand.

“What the fuck?” I snarl; but when I look up, Fiona is rolling her eyes at me.

She looks outrageous. Fiona dresses like she's Tim Burton's latest muse; black pinstripe suits, silk cravats, hair swept up into something that _almost_ approaches beehive territory but swerves to safety at the last minute.

She's mine and Mordelia’s aunt and the band’s manager, but most of the time she doesn't act like either. She's more like the coke-sniffing cousin who leaves family parties early with their pockets stuffed with silverware. Honestly she’s relatively terrifying, which is the only reason she’s our manager; to fuck with us you have to fuck with Fiona, and there are few people alive brave enough to do that. 

“Time to rejoin the real world, boyo. We’ve got pad thai.” I try to snatch my phone back from her but she sticks it down the front of her shirt. Outrageously childish. 

“You are forty years old,” I hiss at her, dodging her slap and throwing myself down on one of the threadbare sofas. I accept the container of noodles that Agatha passes to me and start to eat, but I can’t get Mordelia’s words out of my head.

“Give me your phone, Ags.” 

“No,” Agatha says serenely, not looking up. “I’m sexting.” 

“Why do you feel the need to tell me things like that?” I say, and she shrugs. 

“To inspire you. You depress me.” 

“I don’t want to _sext,_ ” I say, hoping my tone conveys pure contempt. 

“Who’s sexting Baz?” Dev calls from across the room. 

“Nobody,” Agatha and Mordelia say in unison. Traitors. 

“Aw,” says Niall. “I’ll sext you if you want, mate.” 

This doesn’t warrant a response, so I just glare at him. 

“Evening, gentlemen,” says a smarmy voice from the doorway; I feel Agatha stiffen next to me immediately, and brace myself for impact. “Oops - and ladies, of course.” 

Davy is standing in the doorway, looking absolutely dire in a green tweed blazer. I want to kill this man. The only thing that stops me from trying is that Fiona and Agatha would never forgive me if I didn’t let them have a stab at it first. 

“Evening Davy,” Fiona says through gritted teeth. “That’s an interesting hat.” 

“Oh! Isn’t it? Picked it up in the market,” Davy says, taking off the aforementioned hat, which - I am not kidding - has a _feather_ in it. “Incredible, the stuff people think up.” 

“Incredible,” Agatha deadpans. 

“Just came to deliver the news - or, have you already told them, Fi?” Fiona doesn’t let anybody call her Fi; Davy only gets away with it because he’s the promoter. Without him there’s no tour, and even Fiona isn’t feral enough to destroy something like that over a nickname and a generally unpalatable personality. 

“All yours, Davy,” Fiona says, instinctively reaching into her inside pocket for her tobacco. 

“Right! Well. Good news is, we’ve probably secured the last venue after that unfortunate incident with the sewage pipe - Brighton might be going ahead.” I don’t really care about playing Brighton, but I also didn’t want the tour cut short, so I suppose this is good news. “Better news is that we have your support booked!” 

“Who is it?” I say at once. “Is it Merwolves? Did you speak to Pippa?” I all but promised her that support slot last year, when the tour was a distant dream. Merwolves are a little poppy for my taste, but their look is right - distressed sailor suits and heavily-gelled hair, so they look recently lost at sea - and our fans like them. 

“N-o,” Davy says, smiling condescendingly. “This fella’s new. He plays folk music.”  
  
“He plays …” my voice trails off in horror. 

“No need to look like that, Basil - it’s got a bit of bite to it, don’t you worry! You should look him up, there are a few clips of him on YouTube playing in my local in Cardiff. Lad by the name of Simon Snow.” 

I feel like my soul has just drained out through my shoes. _Simon Snow_.

“Never heard of him,” says Mordelia, frowning. 

“Wait a sec - didn’t he go to school with us? Can’t be that many Simon Snows walking around,” Dev says to me, only sounding vaguely interested.

“Yes,” I spit, finally finding my voice. “He dropped out before sixth year. Listen - Davy, I appreciate everything you’re doing for us - we _all_ do.” I nudge Agatha with my knee, and she nods. “But we can’t have a folk musician opening for us on this tour. It wouldn’t be appropriate. It doesn’t _work_.” 

“It’s a done deal, Basil!” Davy says. “You know how it goes - promoter’s choice. Give some of his songs a spin. I promise you’ll like him.” 

“I promise I won’t,” I say, and Fiona throws me a warning look. I’m obviously approaching dangerous territory if _Fiona_ is trying to tell me to keep my temper. 

“Davy,” Agatha says, syrupy-sweet, “I have to say, I agree with Baz. Are we not-” 

“Don’t worry yourself, my girl,” says Davy, seemingly too stupid to notice that Agatha’s bristling with anger at the interruption. “I’ve never steered you wrong in the past.” 

“I’m not your girl,” Agatha says, and I’m impressed by the vitriol in her voice. 

“Ahh, musicians,” Davy says, sounding faintly amused, as if we’re children throwing a tantrum. “Great show tonight, lads. Girls. Fi, I’ll call you tomorrow.” 

“Can’t wait,” says Fiona, as he doffs his hideous hat and leaves. 

“Fiona,” I say icily. “ _Give me my phone_.” 

This time she doesn’t argue. 

*

I don’t sign autographs. I don’t visit the crowds that wait hopefully outside the venue. I try to stop everybody else from doing it, but it’s the one thing they refuse me. We all troop out of the stage door, cheers go up from the makeshift barrier, and I take a sharp left turn directly onto the tour bus while everybody else gamely goes to entertain the masses. 

It’s ridiculous that we even _have_ a tour bus right now, but we had to hightail it from a charity show in Cornwall of all places to make it back for this warm-up gig, so Fiona wrangled a weekend’s rental so we’d actually get to sleep. 

It’s one of those buses with a double bed set-up at the back; I get it by default, and Mordelia couldn’t be bothered to argue over two nights in a slightly larger bunk, so I stalk down the aisle and yank the privacy curtain in place behind me before stripping off my blazer and pulling up Twitter. 

I _was_ a little flat on the last chorus of _Coffin_. Fuck. I watch three different videos, all filmed from different angles, until I’m so frustrated with myself that I want to throw my phone out of the tinted window.

Instead I read a few more gushing tweets - nobody else seems to have noticed the fuck-up, or at least, they’re not talking about it - and then open YouTube and hesitate before typing in a name. 

_Simon Snow_. 

There are a handful of results. I tap on the first one. He’s sitting on a stool, his guitar looking far too small in his arms, wearing a worn-looking flannel shirt. He looks practically the same as he did at school, but bigger; he was always stocky and well-built, but his shoulders are even broader than they were back then. His hair is wildly curly and unruly, longer than he ever wore it as a teenager. He’s got a hole in his jeans, and his trainers - New Balances, I register with disgust - are filthy. He hasn’t even opened his mouth yet, and he’s already a hideous cliche. 

“Er, hi,” Snow says in the video, leaning a little too far into the mic and causing a squeal of feedback. I wince. “Thanks so much for coming. This is a song - this song is called _The Vanishing Road_.” 

He starts fingering the opening notes - they’re surprisingly delicate for someone who looks like he could lift me with one hand - and then he closes his eyes and begins to sing. 

His voice is good, I’ll give him that. It walks the line between soft and rough, rasping on the low notes and coming out surprisingly soft and sweet on the highs. The song, however, is a mess. It doesn’t even seem to have a chorus. For some reason he stops singing in the middle and spends eight bars just nodding while repeating the same four chords. When he finally finishes seven minutes later - _seven_ , who does he think he is? - there’s a scattering of applause, and he grins like he’s just finished a set at Wembley Arena. 

This man is an idiot. He’s going to ruin the fucking tour. 

I can’t _believe_ I used to fancy him. 


	2. EDINBURGH

**@maddieandthedarkcreatures:** _@pitchbitch04_ did you see the tour stuff? who the fuck is Simon Snow?

*

SIMON

The train to Scotland takes five bloody hours. I’m excited for the first two, but then I finish all my train snacks and half of Penny’s and start to get a bit impatient. 

“Do you want to play a train game?” I ask, checking to see if I’ve definitely finished the sharing bag of salt & vinegar crisps on the little table between us. I have. 

“What’s a train game?” Penny replies, frowning at her laptop. 

“Dunno, like - try to spot sheep. First person to say ‘sheep’ gets the point.”  
  
“Why don’t you count how many sheep you see,” Penny says, typing away, “and just give me the tally at the end.” 

“That’s not the point,” I say, slumping back in my seat. I much prefer it when we drive to gigs; Penny’s got this incredibly uncool silver Volvo estate, and the speakers are shit so we can’t even really listen to music. Instead we just chat about anything and everything until we run out of words. 

She’s stopped listening to me now, deep in her emails. Penny manages about six other people besides me - I felt a bit put out when I found out, even though I know it’s stupid - and she runs an online music zine, too, so she’s always got more work to do. 

I never thought about having a manager until Penny showed up at one of my gigs - she’d found me on YouTube and tracked me down - and told me to hire her. It seemed like a reasonable enough request, and she was pretty determined, so I did. That was five years ago. I only found out later that she’d never managed anybody before; she seemed pretty fucking confident about it, so I just followed her lead. Penny’s more my friend than my manager now - and it’s not like I’ve made her any money, so I know she’s not just hanging out with me for the cash. 

She’s completely lost to me now, so I get out my phone. It’s half-dead and there’s no way I’m gonna make it to the end of this train journey with any battery left, but I pull up Baz Pitch’s Instagram for the tenth time today. 

Most of his photos are pretentious arty shit - the corner of what looks like a stone gargoyle, a close up of a stack of records, tall, spindly trees silhouetted against a darkening sky - but there are a few of him. Couple of pouty band shots from their cover feature in _The Musical Record_ , a picture of him onstage where his face is mostly obscured by that mop of dark hair; if you scroll back far enough, though, which I have, there’s a photo from ages ago where he actually looks human. He’s leaning over a table, signing something - I assume it’s his record deal - and he’s got this look on his face, this tentative half-smile, like he doesn’t quite dare believe it’s happening to him.

It’s the only photo that gives me any hope that he might not be as much of a prick as I remember him being. 

He was a type A nightmare at school. We didn’t move in the same circles - _obviously_ \- but any time our paths crossed he was a snippy, snooty arsehole who clearly thought I was about as worthwhile as shit on the bottom of his well-polished loafers. His family came from money - almost everybody’s did at Watford, it’s a pretty posh boarding school - but I was on scholarship, and I could just tell he wanted to give me shit about it from the way he’d raise his eyebrow at me and sigh any time I dared talk to him. 

Wanker. 

I hate thinking about school. Hated every second I spent there. Hate the reason I left.

If he or his smarmy cousin try to bring up anything to do with Watford, I might be tempted to do something that gets me kicked off this tour. I don’t know if Penny would even be surprised. Disappointed, sure, but not surprised; I’ve been doing much better than I used to lately, but school stuff really pushes my buttons, so there’s always the risk that I’ll boil over. I wonder if she’s just waiting for me to fuck up and get us sent home. I wonder if she even brought enough pants for the full run, or if she’s assuming we won’t make it to the end. 

I’m not looking forward to seeing Baz Pitch again, but I _am_ looking forward to the rest of it. I fucking love singing. I love playing my mum’s scuffed-up guitar, and any kind of audience even if they’re half-drunk and only half-listening; I love dressing rooms covered floor to ceiling in messages from all the bands who’ve passed through before, and sticky venue floors that try to rip your trainers off every time you take a step. I’ve never been on a tour bus before, but I get the feeling I’m going to like that, too. 

If we ever get off this fucking train. 

*

Davy is there to meet us at the train station. Penny hates him - I see her grit her teeth the second she spots his weird tweedy jacket - but he’s pretty much my only living relative, and he got us the slot on this tour, so I grin and wave at him. 

“Simon, my boy!” He says, clapping a hand on my shoulder and giving me a little shake. “Ready to take Scotland by storm, are we? Och aye, etcetera?” 

I want to ask him to keep his voice down - his impersonation of a Scottish accent is grim, and we are literally _in_ Scotland right now - but I’ve never been able to say no to Davy, and I’m not going to start now, when he’s done us this massive favour. 

“Can’t wait,” I say, grinning at him, which is true. Penny just rolls her eyes. 

He bundles us into a cab, already off on some rant about how many hills there are in Edinburgh, but I’m practically glued to the window watching tall, beautiful, sandy-coloured buildings slip past us. I’ve never been to Scotland. I’ve never really been anywhere except home - Selly Oak - Watford for school, and Cardiff. I quite liked Cardiff. I lived in Davy’s spare room there from when I was sixteen until I was a legal adult, and then promptly fucked off back to Selly. 

It wasn’t Cardiff’s fault. I just didn’t like living with Davy. Plus, I wanted to have a go at living my own life for a change.

“The bus is parked just around the corner from the hotel,” Davy is saying. “Sorry we couldn’t get you a room, but you know how it is - budget’s stretched to the max coddling Fiona’s boys. Ah - here we are.” 

The cab drops us off in a private car park with a stony-faced security guard sitting in a little box at the front. It’s mostly white vans parked in here, probably so the stuff inside doesn’t get nicked, but it’s dominated by the tour bus. 

It’s huge. It’s black and shiny, it’s got about a million wheels, and all the windows are tinted. I honestly think it might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve got a lump in my throat just looking at it.

“You’re not going to cry, are you?” Penny says warily as we get out and the cabbie starts unloading our stuff from the boot. 

“Fuck off,” I say. I’m allowed to be a bit emotional. How many times did I stand outside gigs with mum, peering round the back to catch a glimpse of the bus, trying to imagine what it might look like inside? I actually can’t believe they’re going to let me on it. I feel like somebody’s going to stop me and tell me it’s all been a horrible practical joke, and that I should get back on the five hour train and fuck off back to Brum. 

We get to sleep on the bus tonight. We don’t have a gig in Edinburgh, it’s just where we’re picking up the wheels before we drive to Glasgow tomorrow. Davy keeps apologising, but I’m ecstatic about it. Baz Pitch and his merry band of dark creatures are in a hotel - Davy’s there too, although he hasn’t said it out loud, cos that’ll mean admitting that he sprung for a room for himself but not for us - so we’ll have the whole thing to ourselves. 

“I’ll give you the tour,” Davy says, and I immediately start following him, forgetting all about my luggage and my kit until Penny shouts “oi!” and I double back to help her. 

The bus is wicked. It’s got a little living room and kitchen set-up when you first come in, black leather sofas against each wall with little tables and a massive TV, and then there’s a tiny loo - so tiny I actually don’t think I’m going to fit in there without having to chop off a limb - and eight bunks stacked either side of a ridiculously narrow aisle. I’m going to need a top bunk. I reckon there are probably rules about this sort of thing, who gets to choose their beds first, but shotgun seems as good a rule as any to me so I sling my duffle bag onto the bed furthest back to claim it. Penny chooses one near the loo. 

I know the back of tour buses like this normally have a massive bed, a proper double for the star talent - I’ve watched videos of them on YouTube - but this one just has another lounge area with an Xbox hooked up to a TV mounted on the wall. 

“This is brilliant,” I breathe to Penny. She wrinkles her nose back. I’m not sure she’s entirely convinced by the magic of tour buses. 

“Righto,” Davy says. “I’ll call another cab. We’ve got dinner in half an hour at L’Escargot Bleu.” 

I pull a face at Penny as he goes outside to make the call. “That sounds French.” 

“I have some bad news for you,” she says, patting me on the shoulder sympathetically. “It _is_ French.” 

*

The restaurant is way too small and rammed to comfortably fit a table for nine people, so they’ve had to push a few together, and the chairs are awkwardly close. We’re the first three to arrive so we sit down and Davy orders a bottle of wine for us to split while we wait for the others.

“Stop tearing up your napkin,” Penny hisses at me twenty minutes later; I look down to see that I’ve absolutely shredded it, leaving a little snowdrift on the table and in my lap. 

“Why are they late?” I mutter back, as Davy checks his phone. “Probably think they’re too important to be anywhere on time - I’m _starving_. Baz Pitch was always a-” 

Penny cuts me off with a shake of her head, then smiles brightly over my shoulder. I turn to see that the door has opened, and the band is walking in. 

My first thought is that they look like a bunch of vampires. Not because they’re deathly pale - Baz certainly isn’t - but because they’re all painfully beautiful and well-dressed, pushing sunglasses up off their faces as they come inside, surveying everything coolly like absolutely nothing could rattle them. 

It’s the fucking cafeteria scene from Twilight. And I’m a budget Bella Swan. (I wish I didn’t know what any of that meant, but Penny made me watch it last year.) 

Baz comes in last. He’s wearing an actual suit, despite the fact that it’s June and it’s hot outside today, even now as the sun is getting low. His hair is much longer than it was at school, longer than it was even in the pictures I’ve seen on Instagram, falling in a gentle wave down to his shoulders. He doesn’t take his sunglasses off, even once he’s inside. 

What a pillock.

Penny snaps into business mode, getting up to meet their manager, a woman who wouldn’t look out of place in a maze on Fright Night at Thorpe Park. I just nod awkwardly as they troop in my direction, wondering if I should get up to greet them even though I’m trapped against the wall by the table. 

Their keyboardist, Agatha, is the first person to say hi to me. She’s so beautiful I can’t stop staring at her - nobody can, everybody in the restaurant is peeking out of the corner of their eyes to try to get a good look at her - but she smiles and sticks out a pale, elegant hand for me to shake. She’s wearing a white sundress and is absolutely covered in tattoos, animals and flowers and constellations winding up both arms; her hair is pearly blonde, but when the light catches it it almost looks violet. 

“Hi Simon,” she says, and I grin back at her. I can’t help it. She’s the sort of person you want to smile at. “Pleasure to have you with us. Like your shirt.” 

I’m wearing a pink and white striped t-shirt that Penny absolutely hates. She says it makes me look like I’m in a barbershop quartet. 

“Thanks,” I say. “I like that weird chord progression you do at the end of _Weeping Tower_. Those tritones are terrifying.” 

Baz Pitch and the Dark Creatures are not necessarily my kind of music, but I thought I should give them a listen when we got the tour slot, so I sat down with their album and a really nice pair of headphones that Penny bought me for Christmas and played the whole thing through. They sound like the 2020 reincarnation of My Chemical Romance, but with more British influence; it’s all coffins and blood and pagan symbolism with them. They would sound like any other pop-punk emo revival band - not that there are that many, that I know of - except for two things; Agatha making magic on the keys, and Baz’s voice. 

It’s so distinctive that when I first heard it, I did a sort of auditory double-take, almost trying to flinch away from my headphones before pressing them closer to my ears to hear more. He’s a bit nasally, and at first you’d think his voice would be thin, but he’s clearly got some serious pipes on him; plus, the man has _range_. 

I found myself humming bits of their songs for days after I listened, and I actually put a couple of them on my regular rotation playlist - _Light A Match_ , their big single, and _Head Full Of Stars_ , which is a weird, quieter song that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the album, and is definitely my favourite. 

If Baz weren’t such a dickhead, I might tell him that. 

He’s literally glaring at me right now. They’re all taking their seats, and he’s pointedly chosen one at the farthest possible end of the table; now that he’s taken his sunglasses off I can see that his grey eyes are fixed on me, and they don’t look at all pleased with what they’re seeing. 

Fiona and Penny seem to have sized each other up and decided on begrudging, mutual respect. They’re sitting next to each other, already talking shit about the industry, lost to the world as they share gripes and complaints. 

Davy offers Fiona some wine, and she grimaces at him. “Not for me, Davy. As always.” 

“Oops! Sorry, Fi,” Davy says, pouring me another glass instead and dragging Fiona and Penny into a conversation about venue rates. I drink it a bit too quickly. When the waitress comes to take our order I point at the most recognisable thing on the menu - some sort of lamb stew - and ask her to bring me a pint. She looks a bit confused but seems to get the right idea, bringing me a slightly dusty bottle of Kronenbourg and a glass. I don’t reckon they get a lot of people asking for beer in here.

Baz is drinking wine. He’s barely talking, just picking at his food and nodding when Dev, their bassist, or Niall - he’s a great drummer, he used to play for this DIY punk band I really liked - lean in to say something to him. He’s still scowling. Maybe he doesn’t like French food, either. 

The girl sitting next to me on my right is Mordelia, his sister. She’s talking to Agatha, but about halfway through the main course she turns and literally _pokes_ me on the shoulder. 

“Hi,” she says. “Why don’t you have any music on Spotify?” 

“Er,” I say, swallowing my mouthful quickly. “Because I haven’t … released any. Yet.” 

“You haven’t released any?” She looks positively disgusted, and I can suddenly see the family resemblance. 

“Not yet,” I say uncomfortably. “Just - you know. Playing shows. Writing.” 

“And yet somehow you’re on our tour,” Mordelia says, frowning; she jumps suddenly, with a little squeak of pain. I think Agatha’s just kicked her under the table. 

“Everybody starts somewhere, Mord,” Agatha says. She means it nicely, but they’re all being bloody condescending. I make panicked eyes at the waitress when she walks past, and she goes to fetch me another beer. Davy gives me a pat on the shoulder and goes outside with Fiona for a smoke. 

“How do you know him?” Mordelia presses on when he’s gone, jerking her head towards the door. “Davy?” 

“Um,” I say. Penny told me not to talk about this, and she’s giving me warning eyes over her salmon, but it’s not like I’m going to lie now that I’ve been asked directly. “He’s actually my uncle.”

“ _What_?” Baz says from the other end of the table. I didn’t know he was listening; he must have hearing like a fucking bat. He’s staring right at me, and now his cousin is too. I can feel myself turning bright red. 

“Uh - yeah,” I say, trying to keep it light. “Mum’s brother. Didn’t really know him, when I was a kid, but we’ve er - reconnected.” 

“I’ll fucking say,” Baz snaps, looking like he’s about to get up and walk the length of the table so he can throttle me. 

“Listen, mate,” I say, feeling heat creeping up my spine, “I don’t know what your problem is, but you-”  
  
“I’ll tell you what my _problem is_ ,” Baz sneers over his glass of wine. “Everybody else on this tour worked incredibly hard to get here. There were a hundred bands I’d have chosen over you to take that support slot - talented people, people who have the right sound and don’t dress like they fell into a discount bin at GAP and died - and now, of course, it’s all falling into place.” Agatha reaches towards him, tries to cool him down with a muttered " _Baz”_ , but he waves her away. “He’s your _uncle_. He just handed you this slot, even though you’re entirely wrong for us.” He’s really getting into it now, waving his wine around like he’s conducting music; he narrows his eyes at me and goes in for the kill, carefully enunciating each word.

“You shouldn’t _be_ here, Snow. You don’t deserve to be on this tour.” 

It takes every ounce of self control that I have not to lob my beer bottle right at his sneering, smarmy face. I can tell Penny thinks I’m about to do it. She’s halfway out of her seat already. 

Instead I get up, awkwardly shove past Mordelia and Dev, and storm right out of the restaurant. 

I have no idea where I’m going, but anywhere’s better than being stuck with _him._


	3. GLASGOW

**@pitchweekly:** Baz Pitch ate dinner at the restaurant where my sister works last night!! Asked her to take a picture and all she got was this 

  
  
  


**@restingpitchface:** _@pitchweekly_ oh my FUCKING GOD she’s so lucky I’m going to the show tonight I hope I see him pootling around Princes Square today

 **@thequeenleigh:** _@restingpitchface @pitchweekly_ whit wid baz pitch be doing in princes square

 **@pitchweekly:** _@thequeenleigh @restingpitchface_ Hitting up the Warhammer shop to find some virgins to sacrifice

 **@restingpitchface:** _@thequeenleigh @pitchweekly_ everybody eats Pizza Express dough balls, Leigh

*

BAZ

Mordelia had jackets made for this tour. She ran the designs past me, of course, but it was mostly her; she deferred a place studying Fashion Design with Marketing at Central St Martins to, as my father described it, “give this band thing a go” (said, of course, with an expression of acute despair on his face). 

We’ve been wearing suits on stage for a while now, and we needed to shake things up. The new jackets are beautiful, supple black leather, all tailored differently to fit our preferences - Agatha’s is cropped, mine leans towards being oversized without swamping me - but they’re all carefully hand-embroidered with hundreds of blood-red roses. The rest of the band have THE CREATURES picked out on the back in white thread, too. Mine says BAZ PITCH. 

It’s hanging up backstage right now, ready for me to grab it when it’s time to go on; Mordelia is already wearing hers despite the fact that it’s outrageously hot and stuffy in here. She’s going to smell absolutely delightful by the end of the night.

Snow and I didn’t cross paths at soundcheck, and there are two separate dressing rooms at this venue so we haven’t had to share air at all since the short bus ride from Edinburgh; he and Bunce disappeared back to the bunks and everybody else watched old episodes of _Community_ on the lounge TV while I sat making playlists of new releases on my phone. We haven’t spoken a word to each other since he threw that tantrum and walked out. 

Fiona has been pointedly ignoring me since I got a little heated at Davy outside the restaurant - he’s gone now, thank fuck, has prior engagements elsewhere and was only able to join us for the one dinner - but she walks into the dressing room now and throws an empty water bottle at my head. 

“Snow’s on,” she says. “Are you going to sulk in here or are you going to be a man and watch?” 

“Why the fuck would you throw projectiles at me when I’m on in forty-five minutes,” I hiss at her, but I unfold myself from the sofa and follow her anyway. 

Snow has just walked out to scattered and unenthusiastic applause, even though the room is already packed to the rafters. The rest of my band are standing in the wings, and I join them, crossing my arms as I lean against the wall to watch. 

"Hello," Snow says jovially, waving as he takes his place on a tall wooden stool. A few people laugh. What the fuck is he doing? He's playing a gig, not delivering the post.

"It's great to be here. This song is called _Rosebud._ " He pauses for a second to get his bearings, and then starts to play. 

His voice is good - great, even, better than it was in those YouTube videos - but everything else about him is insultingly sloppy. 

Our sets are fucking airtight. We run them and run them in practice until everybody's worn ragged; last week when I said "from the top" for the fifth time Mordelia tried to wrench her guitar from around her neck so she could throw it at me. 

Snow plays like he's got no idea what's going to come out of his mouth next. He runs those big, clumsy hands down the neck of his guitar and seems to catch the right notes and chords by the skin of his teeth, ricocheting from one fret to the next at the very last minute like he's making it up on the spot. It puts me on edge, watching him play like that to a packed room - a room full of our fans, who expect perfection. It's like when I used to be forced to watch my little twin siblings in school plays; you know they're going to fuck up, it's just a matter of when.

He does fuck up. He stumbles, stops a song four bars in and laughs into the mic - a proper laugh, not an awkward one.

"That was shit," he says, and a few people laugh along with him. "Let's try it again."

"He's making a mess of this," I say, arms still firmly crossed. Next to me, Agatha rolls her eyes.

"He's fine," she says, unscrewing her water and taking a sip. "Stop pouting."

"I'm not fucking pouting," I snarl, but I am a bit. How dare he take this support slot away from somebody who actually deserved it and then have the audacity to _laugh_ when he can't play his own bloody songs.

"Nearly time for group prayer," Agatha says, and I drag my eyes away from Snow to check my phone. It's quarter to nine. I can't let this idiot get in the way of giving a good show.

We don't actually pray - we're not the second coming of Evanescence - we just do this weird chanting thing that's become such a core part of our performance that we're wildly superstitious about getting it right.

I put on my jacket and go to meet the others in the hallway outside our dressing room. We stand in a circle and hold hands and chant round and round, nursery rhymes and Lord of the Rings quotes and Queen lyrics and the immortal words of Shia LaBeouf ("do it - just _do it"_ ) until it's time to go on.

"Remember what I said about _Coffin_ ," Mordelia says warningly as we bounce on the balls of our feet, waiting for the lights to go down.

If I were anybody else, this might throw me a little, but I'm not; I'm Baz Pitch. The potential to fail is always nipping at my heels. It’s what pushes me to be truly great. 

The venue is plunged into darkness. People start to scream.

For one, fleeting moment, I allow myself a smile - and then it’s showtime. 

*

We were amazing tonight. No mistakes. Perfect timing. Not even Mordelia has anything to say to me when we come off, ears ringing from the cheers that follow us all the way down the corridor back towards the dressing room. I’m riding so high that I almost forget to be angry at Snow when we all stagger giddily into the room to find him and his manager eating some of the burritos from our rider. I make eye contact with him, smiling; he frowns back at me, and my face instantly drops. 

“That’s our food,” I say. “Why are you in our dressing room?” 

“They didn’t leave any in ours,” Bunce says. “You had so much in here, I thought you wouldn’t mind-”   
  
“Well, I do mind,” I say. “I know you’re used to getting special treatment, but Uncle Davy isn’t here now. Get your own fucking food.” 

Snow drops the burrito back onto his plate like it’s burning hot. I can see him practically vibrating with anger. Good. With a bit of luck he’ll throw a big enough tantrum that Fiona will have grounds to kick him off the tour. I seem to remember that he did most of his talking with his fists back at school, before he left. 

“Baz,” Niall says, shaking his head. “It’s a burrito.” Infuriatingly, Mordelia seems to be the only other person just as annoyed as I am about this outrageous nepotism. Agatha had the audacity to tell me that I was overreacting last night. Fiona’s definitely irritated by the whole thing, but even she told me to grin and bear it. Actually, she said “buck the fuck up”, but the sentiment was the same. 

“Whatever,” Snow says, taking a few deep breaths. Bunce has put a hand on his arm; trying to keep him from swinging it at me, I’d imagine. Everybody else is flopping down onto sofas or grabbing food, but I’m still standing frozen in the doorway. “Bad show, was it?” 

This catches me off-guard. I thought he’d just blow up and leave like he did last night; I _hoped_ he would. “Outstanding, actually.” 

“Would have thought you’d be in a better mood, then.” 

“Well by that logic you should be close to tears, Snow,” I say, finally crossing the room to grab a bottle of wine from the table. “You were abysmal.”

“Felt good to me. I had fun,” Simon says, shrugging. This man is dangerously deluded. He had to _restart_ a song. If that had happened to me, I’d be trying to drown myself in the venue showers right now. 

“Nobody was fucking listening to you, Snow,” I hiss. “They were just killing time, waiting for us. They didn’t care about you.” 

Simon actually _smiles_. “That’s not really the point of it for me, mate.” 

I’m not his fucking mate. Fuck this. “It’s extremely poor manners to stuff your face with free food instead of watching the headliner bringing you on tour,” I spit. “If you were actually a musician instead of a spineless, talentless grifter with well-connected family, you’d know that.” 

Mordelia snorts with laughter, but doesn’t follow me when I stalk from the room. 

I drink my wine on the bus, the buzz from performing and my righteous anger at Snow fizzling out until it’s just me and the bottle and the TV in the lounge area inexplicably playing the weather channel on mute. There’s a club next door to the venue hosting a pop-punk revival night in our honour, and I see tweet after tweet in my feed begging me to make an appearance. I scroll idly through them as I pour the last of the wine down my throat. 

Normally I wouldn’t. I’d skin the others alive if they even suggested such a thing. But I’m drunk and angry and if I stay here by myself, I actually don’t know where any of this energy will go. Nowhere good, that’s for certain - but I can’t go back to the dressing room and sit there next to Snow and pretend I don’t want to remove his head from his body.

I can’t put my finger on why he riles me so much. I’m pissed off about the support slot, yes, but I’m also overwhelmed by a need to get a rise out of him; I thought he’d come out swinging for certain in the dressing room but instead he seemed to reign himself in, not giving me anything back. That’s not the Snow I remember. 

If I’m completely honest with myself, I’m more than a little embarrassed every time I look at him and remember the amount of time I spent fruitlessly lusting after him when we were teenagers. He was always bigger and harder and rougher around the edges than everybody else, and it fascinated me. He walked around school with a chip on his shoulder the size of a fucking giant sequoia, convinced that everybody who so much as glanced his way was trying to wrong him; I offered to help him with his Latin notes once after he’d spent an entire day in internal suspension for scrapping with some other fourth form bruiser and he acted like I’d called him an idiot and spat on him.

I did call him an idiot after that. Quite a few times. But he brought it on himself.

For fuck’s sake. It’s the first night of my headline tour - something I’ve been dreaming about since I picked up my first guitar - and I’m spending it alone, stewing over Simon Snow. I put a hoodie on - it’s actually Mordelia’s, I wouldn’t be caught dead purchasing anything with a drawstring - and slip out of the bus before I can change my mind. 

The club is packed; I’m sure there’s no way anybody can recognise me in here, just another blurry body lit in silhouette by the pulsing blue lights, but when I’m standing at the bar trying to decide whether or not to order a drink or abandon this futile attempt to do something with my evening a girl appears at my elbow. She’s blonde and wide-eyed, with enough eyeliner on to sink a ship, and she raises her eyebrows when I turn to look at her.

“You’re - it’s you,” she says. I don’t respond. She pulls a friend towards us by the elbow; he’s tall, as tall as me, and _ridiculously_ pretty. 

“I’m Anna, and this is Connor,” the girl says. “Connor, this is-”   
  
“Yeah,” says Connor, smirking at me. “I know.” 

I run my tongue around the roof of my mouth, then turn to the bar and order a glass of whiskey. 

Connor leans in closer and orders one too. 


	4. LEEDS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content/trigger warning for some brief homophobic violence/slurs

**@rosie4282:** _@simonsnowmusic_ You were wicked last night! 

**@annamontana22:** Holy shit I have some STORIES from last night Creatures fam 👀

 **@lightamatch:** _@annamontana_ f6d7sfsdlfsf oh my fucking GOD ANNA!!! please please tell if this is what I think it is. I have been hearing RUMOURS

 **@annamontana22:** _@lightamatch_ Everything you’ve heard is true

 **@lightamatch:** _@annamontana_ WHAT WAS HE LIKE

 **@annamontana22:** _@lightamatch_ Ummm kind of fucked up. Like really REALLY drunk. I actually felt sort of bad for him?? I’ll DM you 

*

SIMON

Baz didn’t come back to the bus last night after he pitched a fit and stormed out of the dressing room. I sat chatting to Penny and Agatha - she’s probably the nicest, except maybe Niall - and ignoring Mordelia’s pointed glares from across the room, wondering how such an alright bunch of people can stand to be around Baz Pitch for more than five minutes at a time. 

Everybody claimed bunks on the bus, but the one opposite me at the top remained empty, which meant that nobody was watching when I pulled up Catacombs by Baz Pitch and the Dark Creatures on my phone and settled in for another listen. I got stuck on _Head Full Of Stars_ again, replaying it manually so many times that I gave up and put it on loop so that the app would do it for me. 

It’s just Baz and a piano, and he sounds weirdly closer to the mic than he does on any of their other songs - there’s no fancy production, no smoothing out of his edges, just his voice. It’s raw and real and it breaks a little when he reaches for the high notes, but it sounds fucking incredible. 

_Please don’t hold back  
_ _Just let this be ours  
_ _A mouth full of smoke  
_ _And a head full of stars_

 _I told myself  
_ _I would do this alone  
_ _But you’re pulling me in  
_ _And you’re guiding me home_

It feels weirdly intimate to listen to it, like I’m hearing something he wouldn’t want me to, but he put it on his fucking album for all to hear so it’s hardly my fault. 

I can’t help but wonder who he’s singing about. He doesn’t seem like the relationship type. To be fair, he barely seems like the _human_ type, he’s being such a fucking monster on this tour. Nobody else seems the least bit concerned when he doesn’t come back to the bus all night; I do hear Fiona slide out of her bunk at about 2am and go to make a call in the lounge, but I can’t hear what she’s saying over the comforting rumble of the bus. 

You’d think it’d be hard to drop off in a moving vehicle, but it’s honestly the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years. 

When I wake up, we’re in Leeds, and Baz has miraculously appeared in the car park outside. From where I’m sitting in the lounge area drinking a paper cup of tea that Penny plonked down in front of me, I can just see him out of the window; Fiona seems to be giving him a right bollocking, and he’s just standing there, arms folded, looking hungover as fuck but freshly showered and wearing … well, it looks like he’s wearing his own merchandise. 

“Is that a Baz Pitch and the Dark Creatures t-shirt?” Penny whispers to me, frowning out of the window and clearly thinking along the same lines. 

“Textbook narcissism, I reckon,” I mutter back. “Wouldn’t expect anything less from the 99p shop Robert Smith.” 

Penny snorts. “Yeah. Gerard No-Fucking-Way.” 

“Rainy Day Real Estate.” 

“The uglier Madden twin.” 

I squint out of the window and watch as Baz runs a practiced hand through his hair, still looking entirely expressionless behind his sunglasses. “Noel Fielding’s least talented brother.” 

“I can hear you,” Agatha says warningly from the next table over. 

We both shut up sharpish. I don’t stop watching Baz, though. And I don’t stop wondering where he went.

*

The show in Leeds is just as fun as the one last night; i.e., _loads_. I don’t care what Baz thinks about my songs, or how I play, or who I am on stage; as soon as I’m up there, it’s just me and my guitar and anybody who fancies lending me an ear. I reckon people must have looked me up before this show, must have given a few of my songs a spin on YouTube, because there are a few more smiling faces in the crowd this time - a few more people actually shushing their friends because they want to listen - and when I get to _Choose Me_ , one girl actually sings along. 

As much of an arsehole as he is, Baz was right about one thing; it was shitty of me not to watch the Creatures last night, no matter how pissed off I was at him. I don’t fancy lurking in the wings, so as soon as I walk off I grab a beer from the rider - they _still_ haven’t produced any of my requests, so I nick one from the band’s - and Penny and I head out into the crowd. 

The atmosphere is incredible. Everybody seems to be dressed in head-to-toe black, and I see loads of Baz Pitch and the Dark Creatures shirts, both official and homemade. A few people are dressed as vampires for some reason. I spot a couple of jackets that look like knock-offs of the ones the band are wearing, roses painted up the back in a hurry; one of them says SHAZ PITCH on the back. Penny and I tuck ourselves in at the edge of the crowd, about halfway into the pit - I thought the fans there might get a bit shirty that we were pushing in, but they were really nice, just shuffling along to make more room - and when the lights go down and everybody starts screaming, all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. 

It’s dark for at least a minute, but the cheering doesn’t die down; it just gets more and more intense, until I’m sure there’s no way it can get any louder without bursting one of my ear drums. I see a figure cross the stage to the drum kit - must be Niall - and then he starts up this ominous rhythm that sounds almost military, like something you’d hear when someone’s being led to the gallows. The screaming seems to kick up a notch somehow.

The drums stop suddenly. The backdrop lights up - it says WELCOME TO THE CATACOMBS - and then suddenly I hear a guitar - Mordelia’s - and the rest of the band are there, lit up in spotlights, launching into their first song. Baz is the only one missing, and you can _feel_ the crowd looking for him, desperate to catch the first glimpse of him when he does appear. They’re almost to the end of the intro of _Blood on the Gates_ now, and I find myself looking for him too, my eyes darting from one side of the stage to the other. 

When he does appear - just in time for the first verse - he practically seems to fly on, wielding his black custom Strat like a weapon. He’s got an energy I’ve never seen from him before and never would have expected; it’s like he’s been lit up from inside by something, the roar of the crowd or the thrum of the bass or just the feeling of a couple of thousand people loving him so much that they can’t help but reach out for him, even without a hope of touching him. 

_Nothing_ can touch him right now. He looks immortal. He looks like the patron saint of pop-punk.

He puts one foot up on the monitor and sings the last chorus directly to the front row, a mess of hands and phones and crying faces pressed against the barrier, and they practically melt. 

“Jesus christ,” Penny says as the song finishes and the lights drop out again. 

“Yeah,” I say distractedly. I know what she means. All day Baz was stony-faced and exhausted and didn’t speak a word to anybody - not even Agatha. 

So where did _this_ come from? 

I go for a piss halfway through the show - I don’t want to take my eyes off the band for even a second, but I drank a _lot_ of water before I went onstage and needs must - and when I come back, somebody’s standing next to Penny, talking her ear off. He’s tall and black and absolutely covered in tattoos; I notice he’s the only person I’ve seen here not dressed like they’re going to a funeral. He’s actually wearing _colour_. 

“Simon!” He says excitedly over the music when I reach them. I look at Penny questioningly. 

“This is Shepard,” she says, sounding a bit strained. “He _loves_ your music. He’s from Omaha.” 

“Man, it’s so good to meet you,” Shepard says, extending a hand for me to shake. I do shake it. I don’t care if this guy’s annoying Penny; I like him already. “I live in Birmingham too. I’ve watched all your stuff on YouTube a thousand times. I’ve actually ripped the audio from the videos and cleaned it up a bit, so I can listen in a playlist. I hope you don’t mind.” 

“Actually-” Penny starts, but I cut her off. 

“That’s brilliant. Course I don’t mind.”

“Excuse me,” says a short girl with a black bob standing next to us, “but could you please be quiet? Baz is talking.” 

“Shit, sorry,” I say, feeling genuinely guilty. He’s been saying something, introducing the next song; the rest of the band have trooped off and it’s just him and Agatha left onstage, sharing a spotlight. My chest tightens a bit as I realise what this means. 

“This song is called _Head Full Of Stars_ ,” Baz says, and instead of the usual cheering, the crowd does what I can only describe as a collective swoon. 

It’s so quiet you could hear a pint drop, even in these plastic cups they insist on giving you at gigs. Someone has brought Baz a stool, and he sits down on it, tucking a loose lock of hair back behind his ear as Agatha gently picks out the now-familiar intro and he starts to sing. 

The girl with the black bob puts a hand on her chest and starts crying immediately. I don’t blame her. I’m finding it a bit hard to breathe, myself.

Nobody’s talking now. I think even the bar staff have stopped to listen. 

“Jesus _christ_ ,” Penny says again, when the song is over.

“Yeah,” I say. “I know.” 

Shepard from Omaha comes with us to the bar when the gig’s over - they closed with _Light A Match_ , and every single person in the crowd was singing and jumping along, me included - and he buys both me and Penny a drink. 

“I’ve actually taken a week off work for this tour,” he tells me, while Penny raises her eyebrows at him, looking unimpressed. “Hope that’s not weird to say - I’m just really into your stuff, dude. Most of your shows aren’t really announced anywhere. You’re a hard man to track down. So when I saw this, an actual tour schedule, it was a no-brainer.” 

I can tell that Penny thinks we should be running a mile from this guy, but I’ve never had somebody be _so_ enthusiastic about my music; plus I don’t think he’s going to murder me or anything. I watched really closely when he got the drinks, and I don’t reckon he slipped anything in them. 

He talks at me for a while about my songs - I’m amazed by how much he knows just from listening to them on YouTube, how many lyrics he’s already dissected in his mind (to be honest, I reckon he’s thought about them more than I have, but I won’t tell him that) - until we get asked, politely, to move on so that the staff can start cleaning up the venue. 

“There’s a pub just around the corner,” Shepard says hopefully. “I’d love to buy you another drink, if you don’t mind?” 

“Sounds great,” I say firmly before Penny can make excuses. “You two go on ahead, I’m just gonna make sure my guitar gets back on the bus.” I don’t trust the roadies with my stuff. They treat the band’s kit like it’s made of porcelain, but I don’t think my beaten-up old guitar is high on their list of priorities. 

I find it where I left it backstage, and decide to carry it out myself so it can’t get knocked about by anyone else; once I’ve deposited it carefully on the bus, I’m just standing by the back wheels checking my phone to find out which pub Penny and Shepard have gone to - ‘ _T_ _he Hedley Verity,’_ Penny has texted, ‘ _fucking hurry up don’t leave me alone with him’_ \- when I hear raised voices. 

The crowd that usually waits by the stage door barrier seems to have already dispersed - security probably told them very emphatically that Baz wouldn’t be coming out - but I can see a few people standing just on the other side of it, and something looks off. 

As I approach I work out what I’m seeing - Baz, wearing a hoodie, swaying a bit on his feet - and two blokes who definitely don’t look like they were at the gig, getting up in his face for some reason. 

“I’ve heard of you,” one of them is saying. “Yeah, yeah - my sister listens to you.” They’re pretending to be chummy, but I recognise that tone of voice. It’s the weirdly tense patter that comes before somebody throws a punch. 

Baz doesn’t reply. He just sneers at them. He looks _really_ wasted; he’s leaning back on the metal barrier pretending to be casual, but I can tell he needs it for support right now. 

“What’s wrong, My Chemical Bromance? Don’t wanna get a drink with us?” The other guy steps in closer - too close. I see Baz flinch, and the other man starts grinning. 

“Careful, mate. Wouldn’t get too friendly, he might like it a bit too much - Sarah told me he’s a fucking queer.” 

It’s not that warm out, but I suddenly feel like I’m standing in a furnace. Before I realise what I’m doing, I’m next to Baz, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Alright?” I say. The guys laugh, but I’m looking at Baz. 

“Fine,” he says curtly, but I can tell he’s freaked out. He might be tall, but he’s weedy as hell; there’s no way he’d come out of this well if it got physical. 

“What are you?” says one of the blokes. “His _boyfriend_?” 

“Maybe,” I say, shrugging affably at him. I need to de-escalate this. I need to do the exact opposite of what my body is telling me to do, which is haul off and punch this guy in the face. It’s working; I can already see them backing down, knowing they’re not getting a rise out of me. One of them pats the other one on the shoulder, and they turn to leave.

“That’s right,” Baz drawls, suddenly finding his voice with the worst fucking timing in the world. “ _Fuck off._ ” 

“What the fuck did you say to me?” The bigger of the two blokes rounds on him. “I’d be careful how you speak to me, you lanky piece of shit. You fucking f-” 

I know what he was going to say next, but he doesn’t get a chance, because I’ve punched him instead. The second my fist collides with his jaw I think, _fuck. Penny’s going to kill me._

The other guy goes for Baz, swinging wildly and drunkenly; I try to shove him off course but he still manages to get a hit in before I knock him over. The first guy is shaking his head, trying to get his bearings back, and all I want to do is keep punching them both - hit them and hit them until they can’t get back up - but that’s not me. Not any more. 

I take a deep breath, and then yell for help. 

A couple of the roadies who must have been loading gear back at the bus hear me, and come running; it doesn’t matter, though, because the blokes have been frightened off by my shouting.

“Fuck. Are you alright?” I say to Baz; he’s taken a few steps away from me, back heaving, bent over so I can’t see his face. I reach for his shoulder. “Baz?” 

“Leave me _alone_ ,” he rasps, and then he staggers off back towards the venue, leaving me standing there with a throbbing hand and an urgent need to kick something inanimate. 

I don’t tell Penny what happened when I get to the pub. I hide my hand - I can tell it’s going to bruise, and I have no idea what I’ll do if I can’t play tomorrow - and just drink my beer and smile as Shepard talks endlessly about the bands he likes, and who he thinks I should be supporting instead of the Creatures, and which songs he things I should put on my first EP. We part ways as the pub is closing, and when we get back to the bus, I sit for a while looking through social media with my good hand - a couple of people have tagged me in Twitter and Instagram videos, which is new and exciting - until Penny drops down next to me and hands me an ice pack. 

“Where’d you get this?” I say, putting my phone down.

“They’re still closing up the venue,” she says, raising an eyebrow at me. “Who did you punch?” 

“How did you know?” I counter, taking the ice pack and hissing a bit as it makes contact with my hand. 

“I always know,” Penny says, sighing. “Don’t avoid the question.” 

“Just some drunk pricks,” I say. “They were giving - er - they were hassling me. Being homophobic.” 

“Oh, Simon,” Penny says, and she stops looking disappointed and just looks sad instead. “I’m so sorry.” 

“S’fine,” I say, even though it’s obviously not. “I’ll just be really pissed off if I can’t play tomorrow.” 

“You’ll be alright,” Penny says, reaching out and ruffling my curls in a way she knows I hate. “You’re made of sterner stuff.” 

I can’t sleep that night, wondering where Baz is. Everybody else seems to have gone out for drinks together, because they get back at the same time and knock around the cramped bus getting ready for bed. I worry that the driver’s going to set off and leave Baz behind again - I don’t know how he got from Glasgow to Leeds this morning, somebody must have driven him - but just as the engine starts up I hear somebody pull back the curtain to the sleeping area. A few seconds later he’s climbed onto the top bunk opposite and flopped down on top of the covers, still wearing all his clothes, facing me. 

He’s got his eyes closed, so I turn over onto my side and try to get a proper look at him, to see if he’s hurt or wasted or upset. He just lies there, completely still, barely even seeming to breathe. I’m just starting to feel weird looking at him when he opens his eyes and looks right back at me. 

We lie in complete silence for a few seconds. It feels like an eternity. I break first. 

“Baz,” I whisper. “Are you-” 

He turns away from me abruptly so that he’s facing the wall. 

I don’t try to ask again. 


	5. MANCHESTER

*

 **@omahagrown:** _@simonsnowmusic_ It was so great to meet you last night, my dude! See you in Manchester!

 **@ifiwereapitchgirl:** _@bazpitch_ PLEASE PLEASE COME TO THE STAGE DOOR TONIGHT I NEED YOU TO SIGN SOMETHING

 **@niallsgirl677:** _@ifiwereapitchgirl @bazpitch_ he’s not gonna sign your tit Erica

 **@ifiwereapitchgirl:** _@niallsgirl677 @bazpitch_ HE MIGHT

*

BAZ

I have a black eye. It’s not a bad one - that idiot last night couldn’t throw a proper punch if his life depended on it - but there’s still a mottled ring of green and purple bruising just above my left cheekbone. I put my sunglasses on the second I get out of my bunk - Snow is already up, sitting in the lounge playing his guitar softly - and when I sit down opposite Fiona, who’s on her phone, she reaches out and immediately snatches them back off my face.

“Fucking _hell,_ ” I snarl at her, but she just laughs at me.

“You look like shit. Exciting night?”

“Thrilling,” I say, trying to grab my sunglasses back from her. My mouth is so dry it feels like sandpaper.

“You _sound_ like shit. Spend the night making sweet, perverted love to a bottle of red, did you?”

“Were you drunk _again_?” Agatha says, emerging from the bunks in an oversized Joy Division t-shirt and men’s boxers. I see Snow glance up at her out of the corner of my eye. Fair enough, I suppose - if I were straight, I don’t know if I’d be able to handle Agatha in her pyjamas. Not that Snow has a chance; she’s been with her girlfriend Minty for a year and a half.

“You drink every night,” I say, crossing my arms petulantly. I know I sound like a child, but I’m hungover and my head is killing me and Snow won’t stop playing the same eight notes over and over again.

“Yeah, but I don’t get shit-faced and miss the bus and have to get my one-night stand to drive me four hours down the M6,” Agatha says, giving my shoulder a shove. Snow falters and stops playing the same refrain on repeat for a second, but then starts right back up again. Agatha tilts her head at me, then grabs my chin and turns my face towards her. “Baz, what the _fuck?_ Did you get into a fight?”

“We’re not talking about this,” I say, shaking myself free of her and reaching for a bottle of water.

“Baz, come on. You have to-”

“Will you _shut the fuck up_ ,” I shout at Snow. He freezes with his hands where they are, his mouth dropping open. “If I have to hear you play that one more time-”

“Jesus - fine, fine,” he says, raising one hand in surrender. I immediately feel like shit.

“Breakfast time,” Fiona says suddenly. “Come on. Dressed and off the bus. Before I kill you all.”

We’re parked at a motorway services, and the grey morning light makes my eyes burn despite my newly-recaptured sunglasses as we all troop off the bus. When you’ve been on tour a few times, you get to know the best services; we’ve supported a couple of bands over the past few years, so we all know that today’s selection is absolutely abysmal.

Fiona immediately disappears and tells us not to follow her. Bunce and Agatha go off to the loos together, and Dev and Niall make a beeline for Burger King despite the fact that it’s nine o’ clock in the morning. Mordelia laughs for ages at my eye and then follows me to Costa, but turns her nose up at everything and skulks off to Greggs instead.

Thrilled to have some peace and quiet, I order a mocha breve and a sausage toastie and sit down at the only free table in the back corner. I don’t have my notebook - I left it on the bus - but I can work without it, so I pull up Spotify and scroll through my playlists. I’m trying to write a stirring, uplifting chorus - the kind of chorus that makes you feel light and giddy and superhuman - and I’m deep in the research stages, sifting through decades of hits trying to identify the right sort of hook.

I don’t even notice that Snow is standing in front of me until he reaches out and nudges the leg of my chair with his foot.

“What?” I say, pulling out one headphone and glaring at him.

“Can I sit here? There’s nowhere else.” He’s got _two_ cheese toasties, a hot chocolate and a slice of millionaire’s shortbread. He must have the stomach of a stray dog.

“Fine,” I say, not moving any of my things, so he has to cram all of his together as he sits down opposite me. I put my headphone back in - but a minute later, he’s trying to get my attention again.

“ _What?”_

“What are you listening to?” he says, through a mouthful of toastie.

“Carly Rae Jepsen.” His mouth falls open. I can see bits of chewed-up food in there. It’s truly disgusting.

“Carly Rae Jepsen? As in, _Call Me Maybe_?”

“Correct,” I say, skipping back to the beginning of the song.

“You - you like Carly Rae Jepsen?”

“Carly Rae Jepsen is one of the most successful and prolific songwriters of our generation,” I snap. “You should listen to her sometime if you want to learn how to write a song that isn’t somehow ninety percent middle eight.”

“Maybe I will,” Snow says, shrugging. “Just didn’t think that was the sort of thing you’d be listening to, is all.”

”Fine, illuminate me - who do you like?” I ask drily. I don’t want to give him the impression that I actually care, but I do find people’s answers to this question both fascinating and revealing.

His face brightens. “Oh, loads of stuff. A lot of Paul Baribeau right now. Will Wagner. Kimya Dawson, The Microphones. And Ebb Petty, obviously.”

“Who’s Ebb Petty?” I say before I can stop myself.

“Oh my god. Oh my _god_. Ebb fucking Petty - she was this folk punk genius. All her songs are like - barely there, somehow, but they hit you right in the gut anyway. You have to listen to her. What’s your number?”

“What?”

“Your - just give me your number, I’ll send you my playlist of her best stuff.”

“Okay,” I say for some reason; he hands me his phone, which looks like it’s from about 2008, and I add myself to his contacts list. He takes it back and a few seconds later, I’ve got a text from him.

It says ‘ _Hi this is Simon obviously’_ , followed by the playlist link.

“You’re gonna love her,” he says, and I just roll my eyes. I have no idea how he’s so relentlessly cheerful even when I’m awful to him, but it’s getting on my nerves.

We sit eating our food in silence for a bit - well, he’s in silence, I’m listening to _Cut To The Feeling_ \- and then he puts down his toastie.

“Baz,” he says seriously. “About yesterday - those blokes-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I really, _really_ don’t. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it’s the first time it’s come to blows.

“Right,” he presses on, “but I feel like I should say - I don’t - I don’t know if you get a lot of that, people being weird about you being gay, but-”

“It’s fine,” I snap. “You don’t have to try to talk to me about my _sexuality_ and my _feelings_ , Snow. Valiant effort on behalf of all straight men, but there’s really no need.”

“Oh,” Snow says. “I’m not straight.”

“You’re-” I feel like my brain is short-circuiting. It’s suddenly far too overwhelming to have Snow staring at me from the opposite side of the table and upbeat love songs in my ears, so I take out my other headphone and pause the song.

“I’m bi. I thought - anyway. I know people can be shit about it. I just wanted to say that you should let me know if you’re in a difficult spot, or - if people are giving you hassle. You have my number now, in any case.”

I’m still staring at him. He picks up his drink and the paper bag with his shortbread in and stands up.

“I’ll er - I’ll leave you to it,” he says, giving me an odd half-wave before walking away. I see him track down Bunce in WH Smith and hand her his hot chocolate so she can have a sip.

I have no idea what the fuck just happened.

*

I’m sitting in the dressing room later after my vocal warm-ups, glaring at my black eye in the mirror - it’s managed to get worse over the course of the day and it looks more tragic than punk-rock - when Bunce and Agatha walk in and dump their makeup bags on the table in front of me.

“No need to cry about it,” Agatha says. “The make-up artists from hell are here to help.”

“I’m not wearing make-up,” I snarl at her instinctively.

“You wore eyeliner every night last tour,” Agatha points out, rummaging through various tubes and sticks and emerging with something much too pale for me. “Ta-da. Concealer.”

“There’s no way that’s going to-”

“Right,” says Bunce. “But if we _mix_ them.” She’s holding up her own concealer.

I just sigh. I suppose anything’s better than going out there like this and waking up to a thousand concerned and speculative tweets.

“Do you have red lipstick?” Bunce asks Agatha. “If you put red on the bruising first, the concealer works better.”

“In my other bag,” Agatha says. “Be right back.”

She leaves me alone with Bunce, who starts mixing the two concealers on the back of her hand.

“How do you know how to do this?” I ask her, and she snorts.

“Simon.”

“He lets you put make-up on him?”

“He’s actually pretty easy-going about most things these days,” Penny says, and _I_ snort. “I’m serious. And there are very few things that’ll actually get him to hit someone.” She narrows her eyes at me, and I suddenly feel very uncomfortable. “He won’t tell me what happened, but I know he didn’t give you that, and he’s walking around with a moderately fucked-up hand. Was somebody bothering you?”

“It’s fine,” I say, for what feels like the millionth time. Penny shrugs, going back to her mixing.

“It wasn’t easy for him when he came out, you know,” she says softly. “Singing folk songs and telling everybody he was bisexual and living in the area he grew up in, surrounded by a lot of people who - well, they didn’t really get it. He dealt with it with his fists. But he’s been working really hard not to be that guy any more.”

I don’t say anything in reply. Agatha comes back in with her lipstick and I let them prod at me until the bruising is barely visible any more.

“What do you say, Basilton?” Agatha says as I stand up to get a closer look at myself in the mirror.

“Thanks,” I say gruffly, turning to leave.

“Wait,” I hear Bunce say behind me. “Wait - his name is _Basilton_?”

*

I decided to watch Snow’s set. We have a longer turnaround before we’re on - some problem with the light programming that they need to fix - so I join Bunce in the wings as he’s halfway through his first song, intending to stay until the very end to see if he gets better or worse as the set goes on. He seems to have a lot more fans in the audience tonight; I suppose we’re getting closer to where he’s from, plus I know from past experience as a support act that the longer you tour with somebody, the more their fans look you up and actually start listening when you take to the stage instead of using the time to get drinks in.

He’s grinning like an idiot, and his smile just gets wider when a handful of people join in the choruses. He’s still just as clumsy and unpracticed, but I’m growing accustomed to it now; I know that if he makes a mistake he’ll just admit to it, and start again, and genuinely not seem to mind.

I don’t understand him, but at least it doesn’t make me grind my teeth anymore.

His hand doesn’t seem to be bothering him. I feel something twist in my gut as I think about it - his fingers, the ones he strums with, connecting with that imbecile’s jaw - but I quickly push the thought away to focus on the music. I’ve never watched him play his set the whole way through, so I quickly stop recognising the songs, although the crowd certainly doesn’t. When he reaches the last one - a few people groan, like they actually don’t want him to leave, which I suppose I should take as an insult - I can feel the atmosphere in the crowd change.

“This song is called _Choose Me_ ,” he says. “It’s about loving boys and loving girls, and - and working out how to love yourself.” It should be ridiculously cheesy, but he says it honestly - not like it’s a line he’s practiced to say on stage, but like he really means it. I suppose he probably does. People cheer loudly, and he laughs.

I’ve never heard this song before. It’s quiet, and gentle, but it actually has a recognisable chorus - a miracle for something Snow has written - and people immediately start singing along.

Quite a lot of people, actually. And some of them are singing _harmonies_.

_I won’t stop looking til I know what it is to love_

_I just keep going til I find what lifts me up_

_I close my eyes and feel it just a moment out of reach_

_I won’t stop til the ending chooses me_

A girl in the front row is hugging the girl next to her and crying. Everybody’s smiling. By the time the last double chorus rolls around, there are at least a hundred people singing with him.

Snow stops playing the guitar for the last four lines so that it’s just his voice and the voices of the crowd, and they all finish the song together. There’s a moment of ringing silence, and then wild applause, punctuated by a few people whooping.

I’m still trying to get my bearings when Snow reaches the wings and stops in front of me, smiling, his eyes extremely bright. I think he might be close to tears.

“That’s - that’s a good song,” I croak out.

“Yeah,” he says. He studies me for a second. “You look great.” He claps a hand to my shoulder and then walks off towards the dressing room. Bunce throws me a look, but I barely notice it.

 _‘You look great’_?

I’m still thinking about it when Agatha comes to fetch me for group prayer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can listen to Baz's chorus research playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/72U1rRjIOWBj8ICiltNhkn?si=OaGfqHjrQICLUBTm5_69cA).


	6. BIRMINGHAM, PT I

*****

**@omahagrown:** Oh man, _@simonsnowmusic_ was incredible last night! Videos up on my instagram stories.

 **@herbert_lemon:** _@simonsnowmusic_ Where can I find your music it’s not on Spotify or Apple Music??

 **@yousuzeyoulose:** _@simonsnowmusic_ have you ever chopped wood before because you have such lumberjack vibes. asking for a friend

 **@SconeLover:** _@yousuzeyoulose @simonsnowmusic_ ARMS

*

SIMON

Penny, Agatha, Mordelia and Niall are sitting in their pyjamas playing some co-op shooting game on the Xbox at the back of the bus when I wake up in Birmingham. I’m eating my millionth cereal bar this week - these things are lifesavers, but I am getting a bit sick of them - and I accidentally spray crumbs all over them when I try to say good morning. Mordelia glares at me like I’ve puked on her.

“It’s dangerous to be this annoying in enclosed spaces, Simon,” Agatha warns, brushing chunks of oats and peanut butter off her bare leg. “I’ve killed men for less.”

I don’t doubt it. She’s got really muscly arms. I don’t know if playing the keyboard can make you buff; maybe just the way Agatha does it.

“Sorry,” I say, flopping down next to them all. “Day off!”

“Day off!” Niall repeats happily, before frowning up at the screen; Penny’s just blown his head off. “Bunce, we’re on the same team.”

“Agatha, Mord and I planned a mutiny,” Penny says, not looking away from the screen, leaning to the side a bit like she’s steering her character across the screen with her whole body, not just her hands.

“How did you plan a mutiny? I’ve been sitting right here the whole time.”

“Women’s intuition,” Mordelia deadpans. “Oops.” Niall throws down his controller. Mordelia has just stabbed him in the back.

I nudge Penny’s leg with my bare foot and she cringes away from it. “Come on. Freedom! And we’re in Brum! We can go to all our favourite places.” Penny’s actually from London, but she’s spent plenty of weekends up here with me since she started managing me, so we have a few local traditions.

“Can’t,” Penny says, her face screwed up in concentration. “Meeting Shepard.”

“What?” I say. “Oh. Well, that doesn’t matter. He can come too.”

“He can, but you can’t,” says Mordelia. “It’s a _date_.”

“ _What?_ Since when are you _dating_ him?” She shrugs. “Penny, you can’t ditch me. Everybody else has plans. We were going to get milkshakes!”

“Sorry, Simon. I really am. But he’s been very persistent. I told him I’d give him one chance, and he chose today. We can go and get lunch together before the show tomorrow.”

“Fine,” I say, deflating. Penny never dates. She basically doesn’t have any free time, and any she does have she somehow turns into work. We went to the beach once and she ended up taking a busker out for lunch with us and grilling her about her plans for world domination. She deserves this.

I guess I’ll just do all my favourite things by myself.

We shower and get ready in a hostel cos our hotel rooms for tonight aren’t ready yet - everybody else gripes and moans about it, but I have no idea why they’re making such a fuss, it’s actually quite nice as hostels go - and then we assemble in the street outside. Baz has been studiously avoiding me this morning. I actually tried smiling at him on the way out of the showers, and he flinched like I’d hit him. His black eye looks a bit better today.

“Alright reprobates,” Fiona says, talking around the cigarette in her mouth. “Fifty quid each for the day’s sustenance, courtesy of Simon’s sugar-uncle.” I pull a face, which just makes her smirk. “Be back at the Hotel Du Vin in time for dinner at eight. I’ll sort the luggage. Do _not_ make me come looking for you, because I’m very lazy, and instead of doing it myself I’ll hire some very nasty dogs to sniff you out and rip off all your non-essential limbs.”

“Thanks Fiona,” Agatha says, snatching the note out of her hand and giving her a military salute. I take my money too and trail after her a few feet as everybody starts splitting up.

“Where are you going?”

“Sorry, Simon. Meeting my girlfriend, or I’d invite you along,” she stretches her arms out and sighs happily. “We never get good hotels, so she’s coming for a conjugal visit.” I didn’t know Agatha had a girlfriend. Good for her.

“Wait,” I say. “Are you sharing with Penny tonight?”

“Nope,” she says, grinning. “I was going to be in with Mordelia, but she’s shifting to Fiona’s room to give Minty and I some privacy.”

“Oh,” I say, trying to recalculate and move everybody around in my head. “Good. I’ll share with Penny, then.”

“Wouldn’t count on it,” Mordelia says as she walks past with Dev and Niall. “It’s a _really_ nice hotel. And, all offence meant - Bunce looks like somebody who desperately needs to get laid.”

“I’m not going to sleep with him,” Penny shouts from across the road.

“Good for you, love,” says a random old man walking past. Mordelia snorts with laughter, then forcefully shoves her arms through Niall and Dev’s on either side of her so they’re all linked as they walk away.

I see a girl with dark blue braids and an artfully ripped denim jacket approaching; Agatha rushes past me and breaks into a sprint, launching herself into her arms when she reaches her in a blur of blonde hair and black leather. I guess that must be Minty.

“Just going to stand here all day, are you, Snow?” Fiona says as she and Baz draw level with me. He’s wearing that hoodie again for some reason; it looks so weird on him in the light of day that I can’t stop staring.

“Oh - no. I was gonna hang out with Penny, but…” I trail off, waving towards town. “Everybody’s got plans.”

“Basil doesn’t have plans,” Fiona says. Even behind his expensive sunglasses, I can tell Baz is glaring at her.

“Yes he does,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Nope. Free as a bird, this one. He was just whining to me about it.” Her phone rings, and she squints down at the caller ID. “Need to get this. Play nice, boys.” She puts the phone to her ear and strides off, leaving us both standing there.

Baz breaks first. “ _What_ are you staring at?”

“Nothing. Well. You’re - you’re wearing a hoodie.”

“Your observational skills are flawless,” he snaps, digging out his phone and opening Google Maps.

“Where are you trying to go?” I say, moving closer to look over his shoulder. He shifts away from me.

“I’m just - I’m looking for a record shop.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” I say, grinning despite myself. “The Diskery. That’s where I was thinking of going, anyway.”

“Right,” Baz says, looking pained. He can hardly say he doesn’t want to come with me now. It’s kind of hilarious, fucking with him like this.

“Come on,” I say, slapping him on the back and making him jump about a foot in the air. “It isn’t far.”

It’s not like I’ve been away from home for long, but something about the intensity of tour makes you feel like you’ve been off at war or something instead of just zooming around the country by bus. Plus, there’s something specifically fun about getting to show Baz Birmingham that I can’t put my finger on. I guess I just like being the expert in something, for once.

He’s silently glued to his phone the whole way there but I keep pointing stuff out anyway. The Bull Ring. The indoor market. The Travelodge I once threw up outside for so long that I burst all the blood vessels in my eyes. When we reach the record shop, I get the satisfaction of seeing him visibly straighten up, putting his phone in his pocket and pushing his sunglasses up onto his head so he can take it all in.

It’s a proper old-fashioned local, with hundreds of old record sleeves pasted onto the ceiling and that specific, second-hand dusty smell that makes me feel relaxed as soon as it hits me.

“Second-oldest in the UK,” I say to Baz, but he’s lost to me, already making a beeline for the punk section and starting to flip reverently through the vinyl. “You like The Damned? You were listening to pop the other day.”

“I like good music,” Baz says, too absorbed in what he’s doing to snark at me. “Across all genres.”

He’s not kidding about the cross-genre thing. After twenty minutes of wandering the narrow aisles, he’s got a stack in his hands that includes The Temptations, Wham!, Whitney Houston and The Runaways.

“Here,” he says, appearing at my elbow when I’m deep in the folk section and startling me. “Do you listen to The Velvet Underground?”

“Nope,” I say cheerfully, taking the record he hands me.

“You’ll like After Hours,” he says, before disappearing again.

It’s midday by the time we leave and I’m absolutely starving. Baz puts his sunglasses back on as soon as we’re out of the shop even though it’s cloudy and grey, and I roll my eyes.

“It’s Birmingham,” I say. “Not Majorca.”

“The fact that Majorca is the most exotic place you can imagine really depresses me,” he says, but he’s still in a pretty good mood from buying about twenty records, so he’s not actually saying it with malice.

“I’m fucking starving,” I say. That breakfast bar barely made a dent. “Do you want to go get lunch?”

I expect him to make excuses, but he just shrugs. “Yes. Okay.”

I take him to Cherry Red’s, up by the station. It’s rammed, but we walk in at just the right moment and I snag a table by the window. I order a full English breakfast cos they serve them all day; Baz raises an eyebrow at me and orders a chicken burger.

“Seriously,” I say, once I’ve shovelled enough mouthfuls of food in to feel human again. “What’s with the hoodie? And the sunglasses?” He’s got his hood up now, inside. He looks mental.

“Preventative measures,” Baz says. He’s got his phone out again and he’s looking through his playlists, even though he doesn’t have his headphones in.

“Preventative - wait,” I say, catching on. “You’re worried you’re going to get mobbed? _Here_?”

“Well, I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he says. “Maybe one day, if you keep slithering your way onto tours with _Uncle Davy_.”

“Alright - stop it,” I say, putting my fork down. “Seriously. I know you think it’s shit, but I didn’t ask him to put me on this tour. _He_ asked _me_. He made it sound like I’d be doing him a favour, to be honest. And I love playing shows. I’ve always wanted to do this. What would you have done?”

He doesn’t say anything. He just stares out the window, fist clenched around his fork (honestly, who eats a burger with a fork?).

“Baz. Would you seriously have turned down the chance to be on this tour, if you were in my shoes?”

“I’d never wear your shoes,” he says disdainfully, and I roll my eyes, still waiting for a proper answer. He sighs. “No. I suppose not.” He doesn’t apologise, but I guess I don’t expect him to.

“Good,” I say. “So lay off. Do you want a milkshake?”

“What?” He looks startled by the sudden change of direction. I grab a menu and push it towards him, tapping the relevant bit.

“Pen and I always get the boozy ones. Well - she always gets the Bourbon vanilla and then pretends it’s disgusting and never finishes it.”

“It _sounds_ disgusting,” Baz says, but he’s peering down at the options anyway. “I suppose you’re getting one.”

“Cherry Bomb,” I say, grinning. “Coconut and cherry-spiced rum.”

“Revolting,” he says, but when I shrug and get up to order he stops me with a feather-light touch to my wrist. I try not to jolt at the sudden contact. “I’ll have the - the Night Sky Mocha.”

“Right you are,” I say, heading up to the counter.

There are no words for how ridiculous Baz looks sipping a kahlua and chocolate milkshake through a multi-coloured straw with his hood up and sunglasses on. If any of his fans did see him right now, they’d lose their shit at how cutesy it all is. It occurs to me as I drink my own milkshake - takes me about eight seconds flat, I always inhale these things and I fucking _love_ cherries - that to anybody walking past, we might look like we’re on a date.

We don’t talk about splitting up or what our plans are next after lunch - I just lead the way, and Baz follows. I asked him about The Velvet Underground as we were leaving the cafe, and he’s still talking about Moe Tucker’s disappointing politics when we get to the bus stop; he doesn’t even ask where we’re going, just lets me pay his fare and sits down next to me, still ranting (but about Morrissey now). I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk this much. It’s nice to just sit back and listen. His shoulder bumps against mine every time his angry gesticulating gets out of hand.

He only seems to notice that I’ve taken him half an hour out of town when we actually get off the bus.

“Where are we?” he says, glancing around at the suburban houses and the stretch of grass opposite.

“Kings Heath Park,” I say. “It’s got a really good pond.”

“Did you really drag me halfway across Birmingham to look at a pond?” Baz gripes.

“I just listened to sixteen verses and a chorus of ‘the disease of conservatism is rife in the punk community’,” I say, using air quotes. “You owe me.”

I love this place. The sun is starting to filter through the clouds, making everything a bit less depressing, and Baz’s shoulders seem to relax a bit as we walk. I head straight for the bench that looks out over the pond, worrying that there might already be somebody sitting there - sometimes there is, and I have to hover nearby awkwardly until they move on - but it’s empty.

“Nice,” Baz says flatly, clearly unimpressed. I sit down on the bench and pat the space next to me, and he joins me with a world-weary sigh. “We couldn’t have just sat on a bench outside that Travelodge you vomited on, and spared ourselves the journey?”

“Shut up,” I say, closing my eyes and tilting my head back in a patch of sunlight. “I used to come here with my mum.”

I expect some shitty comment, am already braced for it, but he just says “Oh?”.

“Yeah. So don’t be a prick about it, okay? You’ve got free reign to be a prick about everything else - _obviously_ , as you keep making use of it - but not this.”

He’s quiet for a bit, taking his sunglasses off and folding them up carefully to put away in his pocket. “I’m a prick,” he says eventually. It almost sounds like a question.

“I mean, yeah. I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise. You seem quite proud of it most of the time. Personally I don’t know how you manage to keep it up, when you’ve got so much good shit going on in your life, but I guess I admire your commitment to the bit.”

“I’m not - you wouldn’t understand,” Baz says, like he’s a thirteen-year-old baby goth slamming the door to his bedroom, and I snort.

“You’re right. Congrats. You have the monopoly on angst. We’re sitting on the bench where I used to hang out with my dead mum, and you’re the tragically misunderstood one.”

When I open one eye to squint at him, he’s properly studying me. I wonder if he’s been doing that the whole time my eyes were shut. “When did she die?”

“Right at the beginning of sixth year,” I say, feeling a painful squeeze somewhere near my lungs as I do. It always happens when I think about her. It’s getting easier to let the good stuff in too, though. It took me ages to realise that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. “She was ill for a long time. Basically the whole time I was at Watford. I fucking hated being away from her.”

“Oh,” Baz says quietly. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well, nobody did,” I say, stretching out my arms and sitting up. “It was bad enough being the scholarship kid. Didn’t need another reason for everybody to treat me like a freak.”

I sort of expect him to deny this - to pretend that everybody at Watford, him included, didn’t act like I was some dangerous element of the lower-classes come to fuck with the natural order of things - but he doesn’t. He’s just frowning at me. “That’s why you dropped out.”

“Yup,” I say. “Never knew my dad, my stepdad died when I was little, and we never really had much family, so - I ended up being shipped off to Davy’s. He thought I should go to school in Cardiff, but I didn’t see much point in school after that. Or - in anything, really. For a while.”

There are ducks faffing about on the pond, and I watch them instead of looking at Baz. It took years of pretty excruciating therapy to get me to the stage where I can talk about all of this - years of getting into stupid fights in pubs and crying on Pen’s shoulder as she bandaged me up, instead - and it still feels a bit like stripping myself naked every time I do. Mum would be proud of me, though. I know she would.

“My mum died when I was five,” Baz says. “I don’t remember very much about her. Although sometimes I wonder if it would be - harder. If I did.”

“Nah,” I say, giving him a wry smile. “I’m glad I knew mine. I was lucky to get her, even if it wasn’t for very long. She was like sunshine, honestly - all blonde curls and freckles and just, like, _joy_. She played the guitar and she had this wicked singing voice, nobody ever expected it to come out of her mouth. It sounded like she’d had whiskey for breakfast. She was an amazing musician. I reckon she’d have gone all the way, if she hadn’t had me.”

Out of the corner of my eye, it looks like Baz might actually be smiling. Just a bit. “She sounds great.”

“Yeah. She was so full of life, it was really - it was really tough watching her get sick. She always did everything for me, took me to gigs and taught me to play my first chord when I was like, two. I just wanted to do the same for her - look after her, when she needed me - but when I got the Watford scholarship … I dunno. She wanted me to go, even though it meant leaving her. She thought it was the best thing for my future. To make more of myself, or whatever. So I went.”

“But you weren’t happy about it,” Baz says.

“No I fucking was not,” I say. “As you probably remember.”

“Yes,” Baz says, sounding a bit uncomfortable. “I remember.”

I wonder if he’s thinking about all the times I swung for people at school; all the time I spent being dragged out of lessons to get shouted at in the headmaster’s office. They gave me a bit of leeway at first - they knew about mum - but my goodwill ran out around the time I almost threw someone down the well by the chapel. I don’t want him to think about that. And I definitely don’t want his pity.

I turn to look at him and he quickly looks away, out at the ducks. “What was your mum like? What do you remember?” I say.

We sit on the bench and talk for ages. At some point an elderly couple come strolling along and start giving us pointed looks, so we give up our seats and just wander the park. I think about asking if Baz wants to get a bus back to town, but we just start walking in that direction anyway, drifting through Highbury Park on our way and ending up in Cannon Hill by the boating lake. There are two couples pissing about in the pedal boats shaped like swans, trying to knock each other over, and a crowd of teenagers in black huddled over by the trees.

Baz throws an arm out to stop me as we round the corner, and I almost trip. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t look,” he mutters. His hand is still on my bicep. “Keep your head down. Let’s just - we’ll go back the way we came.”

“Why?” I say loudly, looking around to try to work out what the hell he’s on about.

“Because they’re obviously fans,” he says, jerking his head towards the group of kids. He slides his sunglasses out of his pocket and puts them on.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Baz, you can chill out. Not everybody who dresses in black is a Creatures fan. I - oh shit, they are actually coming over here.”

“Of course they are,” Baz says, pulling me off the path and onto the lawn. “Come on, it’s a fucking nightmare when they find you in a pack like this.”

“You’re such a man of the people,” I say, rolling my eyes - but when I glance back at the crowd, they do look pretty intimidating, especially now that I can hear little shrieks and gasps of excitement as they pick up speed.

The whole thing is ridiculous. We don’t break into a run, and they don’t either; we just speed-walk, although Baz’s legs are so long I do almost have to jog to keep up.

“What’s that?” he says, nodding to something ahead of us.

“Oh. Mini-golf.”

“Not the mini-golf, you - the _building_.”

“That’s the tea room,” I say, a little out of breath. “Actually, I reckon - they won’t let that lot in. They’re really grumpy in there, and it’s tiny. We could lie low for a bit until they get bored and wander off.” “They won’t get bored,” Baz says, but we head for the tea room anyway, me propelling Baz ahead of me through the door so I’m a sort of human barrier between him and the crowd. We throw ourselves down into seats tucked into the back corner as soon as we’re inside; as predicted, the bloke who runs it takes out look at the gang of gothed-up teenagers threatening to break down his door and marches out to stop them.

“I have the right to refuse anyone service,” he says, jerking his thumb at a very faded sign by the counter. “Now get lost, or I’ll call the police.”

It takes them ages to give up and go home. I’ve already had two hot chocolates by then, and Baz is working on a third cup of coffee, even though he says it tastes like shit. I’m facing the window so they can’t take photos of him, so I get to watch when the tea room guy goes back out brandishing a broom and starts waving it at them; they slouch off in the direction of town, and the bloke comes back in, looking pretty pleased with himself.

I think about telling Baz that they’re gone - that we’re free to go - but he’s talking about one of the first gigs he ever played, his hands moving in the air like they’re running up and down a fretboard, and I really like him like this. Earnest. Intense. Talking about something he loves, with a little frown on his face.

So I don’t say anything. I just listen.

*

“You’re late,” Fiona says when we walk into the hotel restaurant. It’s ridiculously fucking fancy in here. There was an actual doorman outside, and these massive marble pillars in the entrance; I felt immediately out of place but Baz just stalked right through like it was nothing, asking the first guy in a blazer he came across where to find the Bistro. “Have fun, did you?”

“No,” Baz says, pulling off his hoodie - he’s wearing a shirt underneath, which makes a lot more sense in here - and sitting down next to her.

“We were attacked by crazed Creatures fans,” I say cheerfully, sitting down opposite him. Dev laughs. “Where’s Penny?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” says Agatha. Her girlfriend is sitting next to her, drinking a glass of wine. “Did she text you?”

“No,” I say, frowning - but then I pull out my phone and see that she has. Three times. ‘ _This is a fucking nightmare why did I agree to this_ ’, then two hours later, ‘ _Did you know that the Hare & Hounds is where UB40 played their first gig?’_, and half an hour ago, _‘I don’t think we’re going make it back for dinner, we’re at The Stable and Shepard seems to know everybody here and he keeps ordering really weird pizzas’_.

“Knew it,” says Mordelia, giving me a smug grin from across the table.

“She’s not coming,” I tell Fiona, who rolls her eyes.

“Fine. I’ll eat her dinner budget too, then. I’m having a massive, bloody steak.” That sounds good. Everything sounds good, to be honest. This menu is ridiculous.

“Look,” I tell Baz, waving the cocktail menu at him. “Espresso martinis. Just in case you want to test the limits of human caffeine consumption.”

“Interesting,” Baz says, taking the menu and scanning it. “They’ve got sour-cherry gin slings.”

“Oh, shit, that sounds amazing,” I say, grabbing it back off him. “Cheers.”

It takes me a second to realise that everybody else at the table is staring at us.

“Did you two by any chance go for a double lobotomy since we last saw you?” Mordelia says. “Because otherwise I have no fucking idea what’s happening here.”

“Oh do shut up, Mord,” Baz says; but when the waiter comes over to ask us what we want to drink, he orders an espresso martini for himself and _two_ sour-cherry gin slings as well.

“Two?” I say, as the waiter moves on to Agatha and Minty to ask if they want refills.

“I want to try one,” he says, “just a taste. We both know you’re incapable of consuming anything in normal, human quantities, so you can have the rest.” He’s got his phone out again now, catching up on all the social media he missed today while we were out. “Mordelia, _stop_ fucking staring at us or I’ll gouge your eyes out with a spoon.”

It’s actually a really nice dinner. The food is good, and everybody’s in a great mood after a day off and a prospect of proper beds tonight. Agatha introduces me to Minty, and it turns out we have a shared love of terrible Australian soap operas - Baz keeps rolling his eyes every time I lean over to talk to her about the character arcs on _Neighbours_ , but he doesn’t say anything.

Dev and Niall head to their room at ten, and Agatha and Minty go up about half an hour later, but the rest of us sit there drinking and listening to Fiona’s absolutely batshit stories about her rock ‘n’ roll youth until they start cleaning the floors around us.

When we go to reception to pick up our key cards, Penny has somehow got there first; she’s taken both keys to room 159, which leaves 160 for Fiona and Mordelia, and an extremely uncomfortable silence for Baz and I as we stare down at the little cardboard wallet the perky receptionist slides across the counter.

“Is it a double?” I ask, wincing as the words come out of my mouth.The receptionist checks something on her computer.

“No,” she says. “It’s a twin.”

“Thank fuck,” I say, grabbing the cards. “That’s alright then.”

Baz doesn’t seem to think it’s alright. I think he was meant to have his own room; we get our bags from the porter and then make our way up to the first floor in silence. The room is nice - all mauve and dark wood and crisp, white sheets - but the beds are _extremely_ close together. Baz puts his things down on the bed closest to the bathroom and then disappears inside without another word.

Eventually I realise he’s running a bath. I settle down on the other bed and turn on the telly - it’s _massive_ \- and flip through the channels until I find Jurassic Park playing, only ten minutes in.

By the time Baz emerges, wearing a white fluffy bathrobe and smelling like posh hotel soap, that bloke’s just been eaten by a tyrannosaurus on the toilet.

“You look ridiculous,” I say, because he does. He throws an ornamental pillow at my head.

“The only reason I’m not making you sleep in the corridor tonight is that I just had the world’s most incredible bath after a week of disgusting venue showers,” he warns me, carefully climbing onto his own bed. “Don’t push your luck.”

I wonder if he’ll ask me to turn the telly off - it’s already midnight, after all - but instead we watch the rest of the film in companionable silence. Baz has got one headphone in, and he keeps scribbling things down in this notebook he produced out of his bag. When they finally get airlifted off the island, I go and have a quick shower and get ready for bed, feeling suddenly self-conscious about the fact that I sleep in just my boxers even though I’ve been doing it all week on the bus.

Baz disappears to change into proper pyjamas, and then switches the lights off on his way back in and gets into bed. After ten seconds of silence I’m ridiculously aware of his breathing. What’s the point of a twin room if they’re just going to shove the beds so close together that you’re practically spooning?

“Shit,” I say, suddenly sitting up in the darkness. “I don’t have my headphones. I think they’re on the bus.”

“Why do you need them now?” Baz says, somehow sounding even closer than I thought he was.

“I always listen to music in bed,” I say. “I can’t really sleep without it.”

I hear bed sheets rustling. “Right,” says Baz. “Me neither.”

“You don’t have any spare headphones?” I say hopefully.

“Hm. No.” His phone suddenly lights up, and I squint at him, watching as he leans over to put it on the tiny nightstand between our beds. His hair is falling forward, so I can’t see his eyes. He taps the screen and then eases himself back into his bed as it goes dark; delicate piano starts playing quietly out of the tinny phone speakers.

It’s an Ebb Petty cover, from the playlist I sent him. Billie Holliday. _I’ll Be Seeing You_.

I fall asleep before the song finishes, with a smile on my face.


	7. BIRMINGHAM, PT II

**  
@pitchinheat:** EVERYBODY STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING THIS IS IMPORTANT  
  


 **@makeyourownluck:** @pitchinheat what the fuck am I looking at here

 **@pitchinheat:** @makeyourownluck The back belongs to Baz. The hand: ?????

 **@makeyourownluck:** @pitchinheat how’s that restraining order coming

 **@SconeLover:** @wellbeloved you could step on me and I’d say thanks  
  


*  
  


BAZ  
  


Simon Snow sleeps in his underwear.

I’m not _staring_ at him or anything, but in the night he seems to have kicked the covers off his top half. The morning light has slipped in through the gap in the hotel curtains and it’s illuminating all the fine, golden hairs on his chest as he sleeps with one arm thrown dramatically over his face.

It’s an extraordinarily nice arm, as arms go.

Once, back at Watford, I was startled by the sight of him like this in the changing rooms after football tryouts. He had a split lip that day, grazes on his knuckles, and I was overcome by an extremely dangerous urge to kiss them both; hand, then mouth. He caught me staring and glared at me, so I sneered back, and the spell was broken.

I spent a lot of time at school very angry at Snow for being the reason I realised I was gay. Not because I didn’t _want_ to be gay, but because discovering a huge, entirely new facet of yourself by developing a crush on somebody who absolutely reviles you (and who seems for all intents and purposes to be straight as they come) wasn’t exactly easy.

I didn’t pine after him or anything, you understand. I just noticed him. He was very difficult _not_ to notice, and every time I saw him, it was like noticing him for the first time all over again.

I genuinely attempted to be halfway friendly a few times, but it hurt far more than it should have done when he either ignored me entirely or growled something offensive back, so I started picking little fights with him instead. Much more satisfying - and effective.

He certainly noticed me back, anyway.

I managed to forget about him almost entirely once he dropped out, through concentrated effort and kissing a handful of boys who actually liked me (revolutionary), but the longer I spend with him on this tour the more I feel like I’m fifteen again; gazing at him from across the changing rooms, wondering how far I’d have to push him to get him to touch me, even if it was just to split my lip to match his.

Except we’re not fifteen any more.

And—perhaps crucially—he’s not straight.

“Are you staring at me?” he mutters suddenly, and I realise he’s been peering out at me from underneath his lightly-muscled arm. Fuck.

“No,” I say, snatching up my phone and staring determinedly at it. “I was just deciding precisely how to murder you. You snore.”

“No I don’t,” he says - true, he makes these little snuffling sounds sometimes but he doesn’t _actually_ snore - sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes like a cartoon character. “Nice jim-jams.”

“Just because I’m not parading around in the _nude_ -”

“M’not nude,” Simon says, sounding a bit outraged, ripping back the covers to demonstrate the fact that he’s wearing pants. He seems to realise what he’s done approximately two seconds later, because he goes bright red to the very tips of his ears.

It is taking every last drop of my considerable willpower not to look down.

“Fiona says the breakfast buffet is, and I quote, ‘the dog’s tits’,” I say, and Snow brightens considerably.

“Say it again,” he says. I frown at him.

“Say what?”

“Those two magic little words,” he says, hopping out of bed and crossing quickly to the bathroom.

“Ah,” I say, slightly distracted. “Breakfast buffet?”

The _moaning_ noise he makes in response, amplified tenfold by the bathroom tile, is quite frankly pornographic.  
  


*  
  


Snow keeps trying to catch Bunce’s eye across the breakfast table, but she’s studiously ignoring him, laptop open next to her very sensible plate of eggs on toast. I’m sitting with Dev, who’s trying to show me some stupid TikTok on his phone with a plot so convoluted that I keep missing what I’m supposed to be laughing at.

“Hey Pen,” Snow says eventually, from around a mouthful of pastry. “Good night?”

“Satisfactory,” Bunce says. She keeps typing but I can see the corners of her mouth tensing, like she’s trying not to smile.

“Ouch,” says Mordelia. “A glowing review.”

“The details of my social life aren’t yours to dissect,” Bunce says primly.

“You can dissect the details of mine if you want,” Agatha says, stretching out her shoulders and sighing happily.

“Um. No, they cannot,” Minty says with alarm; Agatha just laughs and kisses her messily. I roll my eyes, and I hear Snow snort with laughter.

“You and Penny just did that at the exact same time,” he says, pointing at me with a croissant. “You’ve synched up.” I don’t dignify this with a response, instead tearing open a paper packet of sugar and dumping it into my coffee.

Snow brushes flakes of pastry off his hands and starts looking around, frowning. “Where’s the …” I push the half-empty pot of raspberry jam down the table towards him, and he grins at me. He’s got melted chocolate on his top lip.

Bunce closes her laptop very suddenly, and I jump. “How was _your_ night?” She says, narrowing her eyes at Snow as he spoons generous amounts of jam onto a pain au chocolat.

“My - what? Er. Fine,” he says, looking strangely cagey. I can’t imagine why - he _definitely_ didn’t get up to anything indecorous. He was with me the whole time.

“Hmm,” says Bunce, turning her ice-pick stare on me. “Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Niall says, looking up from where he’s been talking to Fiona.

“Have you noticed,” Simon says suddenly, with a hint of desperation in his voice, “that the ceiling is covered in naked babies?”

“They’re _cherubs_ ,” Mordelia says witheringly, and in the ensuing argument about neoclassical decor, we never get to find out precisely what Bunce thought was so interesting.

*

I have to do press before the show; Fiona whisks me away after soundcheck to a grotty little side room at the venue and I sit on an obscenely shiny leather sofa and talk to reporters from two local newspapers, both of whom look about as interested in this conversation as I feel (i.e. not at all).

Both times I accidentally let slip that our support act is a local, and they brighten up a bit and head gamely off towards the dressing rooms to look for him. I suppose ‘local boy made good’ makes for a far more interesting headline than ‘soft southern posh boy dislikes sofa’. Fiona has arranged phone interviews next, endless rounds of radio station call-ins and pre-records, and I feel my will to live slowly draining from my body the longer they go on.

I’m bumped from one show due to breaking news and think I’m free to go, but after a furious text exchange Fiona tells me to stay put and wait (it’s a big national, or I wouldn’t bother). I check my phone and realise with a start that Snow is on stage in five minutes.

“Don’t give me that look, you’ve got plenty of time before you go on,” Fiona says, rolling a cigarette on the scarred and rickety table between us. “Come on. Buck up for Radio One.”

I do not buck up for Radio One. I give short, curt answers, ignoring Fiona’s wild gesticulating, and when they finally wrap things up an age later I storm from the room and rush through the warren of service staircases and dark corridors until I reach the stage.

My whole band is standing with Bunce in the wings. Agatha glances back over her shoulder and puts an arm around my waist, pulling me into her side and grinning.

“They love him,” she says, laughing quietly.

She’s right. They do.

I don’t know if local Simon Snow fans managed to beat _our_ fans to these tickets, or if a significant proportion of our fans have also become Simon Snow fans in the past week - but either way, Simon is smiling down at hundreds of faces that are smiling right back at him.

When he reaches his last song, I’m overcome by a strange and insistent urge to leave rather than listen to all that raw emotion packed into one room, but I force myself to stay and listen as the crowd sings along. They sing so loudly they almost drown him out. Agatha sings too, puts both hands on my shoulders and tries to get me to slow-dance with her, but gives up when I don’t move.

I’m watching the tears run down Simon’s face as he falters - tries to keep singing - stops, wipes his eyes - then just shrugs, laughing, and conducts the crowd as they finish it for him.

“Shit. Thank you, Birmingham,” he says thickly into the microphone. “Thank you for welcoming me home.”

I’m so distracted during group prayer that Mordelia shoves me, hard, and makes us all start again. She keeps glaring at me as we put on our jackets, her eyes fixed on me right up until the moment she leaves me behind in the wings to take her place on stage.

“Bloody amazing crowd tonight,” Snow says from behind me, and I turn to look at him, one hand clenching a little too tightly on the neck of my guitar. His eyes are shining, a bit pink around the edges, and his curls are sticking up all over the place.

“They always are,” I say, as the band launch into the first bars of _Blood on the Gates_.

“Shit, sorry, I’m probably not - you don’t like to talk before you go on,” Snow says, looking genuinely horrified at his mistake.

“No,” I say. “I don’t. You’re bad luck, Simon.”

“What?” He says, leaning forward to try to hear me over the sound of Mordelia’s guitar.

“I said - you’re bad luck, Snow.” He doesn’t look at all perturbed by this. He just grins.

“You’ve got-” he gestures to my hair, and before I can react, reaches out and pushes a wayward lock of it away from my face.

“Thanks,” I say. I feel like he’s still touching me, even though he’s not; he’s standing a foot away, _too_ close, still smiling like this is the best night of his life. It probably _is_ the best night of his life.

Something flares in the back of my mind, and I turn my head sharply towards the stage to listen. All the blood in my body turns to ice.

Snow is still smiling at me. I’m still standing here, rooted to the spot, fifteen feet away from the microphone.

And I’ve just missed my fucking cue.  
  


*  
  


“It wasn’t that bad,” Niall says from behind me as I enter the dressing room. I honestly can’t remember how I got here. I’m not even registering my feet touching the ground.

“Baz,” Agatha says, grabbing my upper arm. “Just sit down for two seconds, and we’ll-”

“Fuck _off_ ,” I snarl, wrenching myself out of her grasp. She looks genuinely hurt, and then angry. I never speak to Agatha with actual malice. There’s no space to feel bad about that right now.

“You fucked it,” Mordelia says, storming into the room and kicking a full water bottle on the floor so that it smacks loudly against the wall. “You fucking fucked it, you just-”

I don’t wait to hear what else she wants to shout at me; I just grab my wine and leave, dodging Niall’s concerned hand as I go. I don’t know where I’m going; I have no idea where any of the doors down this corridor lead, so I head for the only one that’s familiar and wrench it open, locking it behind me with fingers that won’t stop shaking.

The solitary shower in here drips forlornly as I turn and fall back against the door, letting my head hit it, hard, before I slide down to a sitting position and open the bottle of wine.

 _You fucked it. You fucking fucked it_.

Missing the cue by itself would have been bad enough - although the rest of the band covered for me seamlessly by repeating the intro again in its entirety - but it didn’t end there.

I was flustered and distracted and once I’d made a mistake, I just kept making them. Missing notes. Forgetting lyrics. Bungling solos. It was amateur hour, start to finish. I made an absolute fool of myself, and the band, and Fiona, and all the people who scrimped and saved and camped out on the Ticketmaster website to be here tonight.

I fucked it.

Someone knocks softly on the door. I ignore them.

“Baz,” Simon says quietly, and I close my eyes and release a long, agitated breath through my nose.

“Go away, Snow.”

I hear him move against the door, and realise he’s sitting down on the other side. He’s quiet for at least a minute before he speaks. “It wasn’t bad at all. Everybody still bloody loved it. I honestly don’t think anyone but you noticed-”

“Spare me,” I spit, pushing away from the door and turning around to glare in Snow’s direction, as if he can see me. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Listen - shit, I know you think everything has to be perfect, but you seriously need to-”

“I seriously need you to leave. Right now. You have literally no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t want to hear mumbled imbecilic platitudes from you just because you had _one_ good show and think you understand what it means to be a musician.”

He tries to say something, but I cut him off. “Fuck off, Simon. Get the fuck away from me. Get the _fuck_ away from my tour.”

Silence. I hear him sigh, sounding pretty pissed off, which should make me feel a little better but just makes the weight on my chest even heavier. Then he scrambles to his feet, and walks away.

I drink the wine like it’s water. I’m so furious I don’t know what to do with myself, and now that Snow’s gone, there’s nobody else to take it out on. I want to punch something - the door, the wall, it doesn’t matter, and it always seemed to make Snow feel better back at school - but I’m too scared I’ll break something and fuck the rest of the tour up as badly as I’ve ruined tonight.

I think half an hour has passed, but I don’t have my phone - I didn’t think to grab it when I practically ran offstage - when somebody hits the door _very_ hard.

“Snow, I told you to-”

“It’s not Snow,” says Fiona. “It’s your worst fucking nightmare. Open the fucking door, Basilton.”

I don’t, but I do move away from it. It’s just as well, because there’s another very loud bang, and the door rattles in its frame.

“Are you _insane?_ ” I hiss. “You’re going to break it, and we’re going to get blacklisted from this venue for life.”

“Then _get out here_ ,” Fiona says dangerously. “Or the door isn’t the only thing I’ll break. You know what kind of frontman hides backstage and sulks and throws fucking tantrums when things don’t go his way? Axl fucking Rose. Do you want to act like a grown up, or do you want to act like Axl _fucking-”_

I open the door. Fiona is standing there, arms crossed, with Agatha at her shoulder.

“Good,” she says. “Go change. We’re going out.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say, and Fiona just rolls her eyes and stalks off down the corridor.

“Baz,” Agatha says softly. “Don’t be a dick.”

For one embarrassing moment, I feel like I might cry. I should apologise to Agatha. None of this is her fault. She’s one of the people I feel I’ve let down the most.

“Come on,” she says, putting an arm around my shoulder. “Simon’s got a plan.”

_Simon’s got a plan?_

I immediately regret my momentary benevolence.

*  
  


SIMON  
  


I was a bit worried that this was a shit idea - that everybody would just slump down in their seats and refuse to join in, and it’d make the atmosphere even worse - but I underestimated Agatha.

She and Minty are currently doing an extremely involved rendition of that duet from _Dirty Dancing_ ; they’ve both got great voices, and even Mordelia has cheered up enough (and drunk enough whiskey and cokes) to start shouting “FUCKING LIFT HER” as they get to the last chorus.

I’ve never actually been to Karaoke Box before, just walked past it, so it could have been really shit and depressing inside, but luckily it isn’t; they gave us the galaxy room, which is lined with this sort of bench of leather seats, and all lit up in purple with these little twinkly lights in the ceiling to look like stars.

It’s cheesy as fuck, but I felt like everybody needed a lift after Baz’s giant meltdown back at the venue. Plus, I know from experience that musicians _love_ karaoke. Any chance to show off. Case in point: Agatha’s actually lifting Minty right now, still singing, although Minty keeps whacking her on the back and screaming to be put down. Everyone else is laughing.

Well, everyone except Baz. But he’s here, even if he’s sullen and dead-eyed and refusing to talk to anybody. He changed into a black t-shirt and jeans after the gig, and put his hair up in this little bun at the base of his neck that makes him look like an extremely angry ballerina.

The only thing he’ll do is drink, so I get him a fresh glass of red wine when I go out to the bar for a pint, and he accepts it without thanks when I get back to the room.

“Sing,” Agatha says, pushing the plasticky mic into my hand.

“Alright,” I say, going over to the console to scroll through the available songs. “Jesus, there’s a lot of Ed Sheeran on here.”

“ _No_ ,” everybody - even Penny - says at once.

“Calm down, I didn’t say I was gonna - alright, nobody’s allowed to fucking complain,” I make my selection and Niall cheers when the screen spells out _Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way_ in purple Comic Sans.

“Pen, sing with me,” I say, and Penny just laughs and shakes her head, knocking back gin and tonic as she talks to Fiona, who looks like she needs something a lot stronger than the coke in her hand to suffer through a whole night of this.

I sing by myself, really getting into it, dancing around the room with my pint in one hand (I spill it quite a few times, but for once nobody gets grouchy about it). Even Mordelia laughs when I point at her and belt the chorus.

I make the mistake of looking directly at Baz when I sing the next verse - “ _if I could, baby I’d give you my world”_ \- and turn quickly to aim my efforts at Agatha instead when he won’t meet my eye. She presses a hand to her chest in a sarcastic sort of swoon, and Minty does this whole bit about holding her back so she doesn’t launch out of her seat to ravish me.

Shepard turns up an hour later when Mordelia is doing an angsty Avril Lavigne number, buys everybody drinks - not that we need them, we’re all already pretty plastered - and then makes Penny laugh so hard with his deadpan and word-perfect rendition of _The Bad Touch_ by Bloodhound Gang that she has actual tears in her eyes.

I don’t know when Baz stopped looking so miserable but he’s actually leaning easily back against the padded wall now, talking to Niall, wine glass held loosely in his hand instead of clenched in his fist. A few strands of hair have escaped his bun and are curling gently around his face.

Agatha goes over to him and says something in his ear, and he shakes his head vehemently. I don’t have to be standing next to him to know that he just said “no” very firmly.

“Fine,” she says, straightening up. “Mord and I will do it with you.”

“Do what?” I say, as Mordelia fiddles with the console.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she says, waggling her eyebrows at me. Drunk Mordelia is genuinely alarming. She somehow always looks on the verge of committing arson, even when she’s nowhere near an open flame.

An upbeat pop song starts pumping through the speakers - the screen tells me it’s something called _Motivation_ by Normani - and Fiona immediately groans.

“Not this fucking thing _again_ ,” she says.

“Baz,” Mordelia says, crossing the room and pressing the mic into his hands. “Sing, you fucking coward.”

He rolls his eyes, but to my surprise he gets up anyway. Agatha is holding the other mic, but she watches just long enough to make sure he’s actually going to sing and then throws it down on the bench.

He might be pissed off and tired and drunk, but apparently - no matter how he might feel about how the gig went tonight - he’s incapable of _not_ giving a good show. This isn’t a song I ever could have imagined him signing in my _wildest_ dreams, but he’s doing a damn good job of it.

Mordelia whoops and Dev wolf-whistles as it gets to the chorus. This is an _extremely_ sexy song. It’s almost too much to look at Baz while he sings it, so just I keep clutching my pint like it’s a life raft and laughing helplessly along with Penny, swallowing hard when he catches my eye and fucking _smirks._

I’m just thinking that this night couldn’t get any more weird or ridiculous when Agatha and Mordelia shuffle into place on either side of him and start doing an _actual dance routine_.

“What the _fuck_ ,” I splutter. Mordelia’s not the best dancer, but it’s still pretty fucking impressive - they’re so in synch they look like they’ve done this a hundred times before.

“They spent _days_ learning this during downtime when we were recording the album,” Dev says in this long-suffering voice, apparently reading my mind. “Literally couldn’t escape it, any time we had a free second the three of them were watching the video over and over again.”

“The three of them?” I say, and Dev nods at Baz.

“He-” I’m actually speechless. Minty cheers, takes a five pound note out of her pocket and throws it at Agatha; it flutters uselessly to the floor.

“Dance, Basilton,” Mordelia yells over the music; he rolls his eyes, shaking his head, but as they get to the next chorus I swear his fucking hips are moving in time with her and Agatha’s, even if he’s not doing all the moves properly. I can’t stop looking at them - his hips, that is. It’s easier than looking at his face, anyway, when he’s flawlessly singing lines like “ _get you naked, but I won’t tell ‘em”._

“Drink your beer,” Penny says to me, raising both eyebrows at me and elbowing me in the side. I do.

Everyone cheers when they finish, and Baz gives a sarcastic little half-bow, and then Fiona gets up to murder _Vienna_ by Billy Joel. She keeps throwing these pointed looks at Baz, and he keeps cupping a hand around his mouth to boo her, but I can tell we’ve broken through whatever had him stuck drinking alone in that bathroom.

We keep going until they start threatening to chuck us out - Penny does an impressive Kate Bush impression, Dev and Niall treat us to a frankly painful eight minutes of Meat Loaf - and when they come to tell us “one more song guys, seriously, just make it one more”, Baz chooses _Super Trouper_ by ABBA and everybody gets up to sing it.

Agatha serenades Minty; Dev gets up on the table with Fiona so he can throw authentic 70s disco shapes; Niall and Mordelia seem to be doing some sort of weird waltz. Baz and I end up with the mics somehow, singing our hearts out in the middle of everybody, pressed in on all sides by happy, sweaty bodies.

When I reach out to sling an arm around his shoulders he doesn’t shrug me off like I’m expecting; he just looks at me, laughing and unguarded and the _messiest_ I’ve ever seen him, and leans into me as ABBA play us out.


End file.
